Coherent x-ray diffractive imaging is a nondestructive technique that extracts three-dimensional electron density and strain maps from materials with nanometer resolution. It has been utilized for materials in a range of applications, and has significant potential for imaging buried nanostructures in functional devices. Here, we show that coherent x-ray diffractive imaging is able to bring new understanding to a lithography-based nanofabrication process for engineering the optical properties of semiconducting GaAs_1-yN_y on a GaAs substrate. This technique allows us to test the process reliability and the manufactured patterns quality. We demonstrate that regular and sharp geometrical structures can be produced on a few-micron scale, and that the strain distribution is uniform even for highly strained sub-microscopic objects. This nondestructive study would not be possible using conventional microscopy techniques. Our results pave the way for tailoring the optical properties of emitters with nanometric precision for nanophotonics and quantum technology applications.

相干X射线衍射成像是一种无损技术，可以从具有纳米分辨率的材料中提取三维电子密度和应变图。它已被用于多种应用中的材料，并且具有显着的潜力，可以使功能器件中的隐埋纳米结构成像。在这里，我们表明相干x射线衍射成像能够为基于光刻的纳米制造工艺带来新的理解，以工程化半导体GaAs _1-y N _y的光学特性在砷化镓衬底上。这种技术使我们能够测试过程的可靠性和所制造的图案质量。我们证明，可以在几微米规模上产生规则而尖锐的几何结构，并且即使对于高度应变的亚微观物体，应变分布也是均匀的。使用传统的显微镜技术不可能进行这种非破坏性研究。我们的结果为纳米光子学和量子技术应用以纳米级精度定制发射器的光学特性铺平了道路。