Atomic image reconstruction by partially attenuated X-ray beam

A novel scheme is proposed to reconstruct the 3-dimensional image of nature with atomic resolution. A partially attenuated X-ray beam obtained from slant edge is scattered by the specimen's electron density of arbitrary structure, and is recorded by the intensity detector on a diffractometer. The missing `phase information' is compensated by introducing the second parameter in addition to the scattering vector, viz., the slant angle of the ray attenuator. From the scattering intensity data, the linear density along any direction is recovered by the double inversion procedure outlined. The 3D image can then be reconstructed from these linear density projections using twice the methods developed for CT technology.