Time-resolved x-ray microscopy for materials science

X-ray microscopy has been an indispensable tool to image nanoscale properties for materials research. One of its recent advances is to extend microscopic studies to the time domain for visualizing the dynamics of nanoscale phenomena. Large-scale x-ray facilities have been the powerhouse of time-resolved x-ray microscopy. Their upgrades including a significant reduction of the x-ray emittance at storage rings and fully coherent ultrashort x-ray pulses at free electron lasers, will lead to new developments in instrumentation and open new scientific opportunities for x-ray imaging of nanoscale dynamics with the simultaneous attainment of unprecedentedly high spatial and temporal resolutions. This review presents recent progress in and the outlook for time-resolved x-ray microscopy in the context of ultrafast nanoscale imaging and its applications to condensed matter physics and materials science.