A quantitative framework for ultrafast ptychography through digital twin control of extreme-ultraviolet beams

Abstract

Ptychography is a powerful imaging method that has transformed microscopy at large-scale and laboratory facilities. Its combination with extreme-ultraviolet light has enabled tabletop microscopes that visualize nanoscale dynamics and characterize ultrafast pulses. However, the performance of ultrafast ptychography is dictated by a critical trade-off between beam delivery, data-acquisition and computational demands, and a quantitative framework linking beamline design and image quality is missing. Here, we introduce a digital twin protocol to optimize ultrafast ptychography performance for a chosen focusing geometry. We construct high-fidelity virtual replicas of three practical delivery schemes based on spherical, ellipsoidal and toroidal optics, constrained by realistic source parameters, optics metrology and detector response. We implement their probes through a full ptychographic reconstruction workflow. For each delivery scheme, we analyze how misalignments and realistic surface figure errors modify the probe, and quantify how these changes govern oversampling, computational cost, spatial resolution and image contrast. Our results provide a performance-oriented protocol for designing and upgrading ultrafast extreme ultraviolet ptychography beamlines, including those optimized for attosecond spectroscopy.