Attentional Ptycho-Tomography (APT) for three-dimensional nanoscale X-ray imaging with minimal data acquisition and computation time

Abstract: Noninvasive X-ray imaging of nanoscale three-dimensional objects, e.g. integrated circuits (ICs), generally requires two types of scanning: ptychographic, which is translational and returns estimates of complex electromagnetic field through ICs; and tomographic scanning, which collects complex field projections from multiple angles. Here, we present Attentional Ptycho-Tomography (APT), an approach trained to provide accurate reconstructions of ICs despite incomplete measurements, using a dramatically reduced amount of angular scanning. Training process includes regularizing priors based on typical IC patterns and the physics of X-ray propagation. We demonstrate that APT with 12-time reduced angles achieves fidelity comparable to the gold standard with the original set of angles. With the same set of reduced angles, APT also outperforms baseline reconstruction methods. In our experiments, APT achieves 108-time aggregate reduction in data acquisition and computation without compromising quality. We expect our physics-assisted machine learning framework could also be applied to other branches of nanoscale imaging.