Soft x-ray ptychography is becoming a key synchrotron microscopy technique in the fields of condensed matter physics, chemistry, and environmental and life sciences. Its attractiveness across broad disciplinary fields is owed to the favorable combination of high spatial resolution and strong contrast mechanisms. The SOft X-ray Ptychography Highly Integrated Endstation (SOPHIE) at the Swiss Light Source (SLS) was developed to accommodate soft x-ray ptychography experiments requiring high spatial resolution, in addition to high chemical and ferroic sensitivities. An introduction to soft x-ray ptychography with SOPHIE aimed at prospective users is provided. Furthermore, an overview of the instrumentation of SOPHIE is given along with an example of the imaging capabilities, which demonstrate the achievement of a sub-10 nm spatial resolution at a photon energy of 706 eV.
@article{arxiv.2509.18805,
title = {Soft x-ray ptychography with SOPHIE: Guide and instrumentation},
author = {Tim A. Butcher and Simone Finizio and Lars Heller and Nicholas W. Phillips and Blagoj Sarafimov and Carlos A. F. Vaz and Armin Kleibert and Benjamin Watts and Mirko Holler and Jörg Raabe},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.18805},
year = {2025}
}