No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Current technology has made possible the fabrication of multilayered optical elements for soft x-ray radiation. These structures find a variety of important applications. Difficulties in the design and fabrication of multilayers for soft x-rays are related to the lack of information about the properties of materials in the very thin layers (~5-100 Å) required. Imperfections cause the measured optical properties of the multilayers to deviate strongly from ideal behavior. Realistic calculations of reflectance must take these imperfections into account. We review the pertinent theory, with attention to the problem of including non-ideal properties. We also review characterization techniques suitable for the measurement of relevant structural and stoichiometric parameters of the multilayer. A detailed characterization procedure is presented. This procedure is capable of accurately determining the layer thicknesses, material densities, interfacial rms roughness or diffusion values, crystalline structure, concentration of contaminants, and extent of surface oxidation. The techniques used included low-angle x-ray θ-2θ diffraction with parallel-beam and Bragg-Brentano geometries, wide-film Debye-Scherrer ("Read") camera and Seemann-Bohlin diffractometer, Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. Si/W multilayer mirrors were designed for normal-incidence 210 Å radiation. Samples were fabricated using a magnetically-confined-plasma dc-triode sputtering technique. Our characterization procedure was applied to these samples. To our knowledge, this is the first time such a comprehensive set of characterization techniques has been applied to a multilayer x-ray optical element. The same samples were tested with synchrotron radiation over a wide spectral range, and for several incidence angles. The measured reflectance is in excellent agreement with curves calculated using the information obtained from the characterization results, with no adjustable parameters. The Si/W combination is shown to have good layering characteristics. The near-normal reflectance of the multilayers was 20 to 30 times better than the reflectivity of the best single-surface mirrors at the same wavelengths.

Investigating and mapping fundamental processes in nature is a driving force for breakthroughs in research and technology. Doing so, requires knowledge of the smallest scales of the world. One way of performing measurements on these scales is through intense x-ray sources, which have improved greatly over the last decades. By combing these sources with state of the art optics, even higher flux densities can be reached, allowing for faster measurements and ground-breaking discoveries.  This study aims to explore the performance of polycapillary optics, when aligned to one of the most intense x-ray micro sources in the world, the liquid-metal-jet D2+. Knife edge scans were performed together with a photon-counting medipix x-ray camera to quantify focus properties such as, flux, flux density, transmission, gain and beam width. Measurements were conducted with a 20 μm source spot that was compared to a simulated 200 μm source spot, both at 260 W electron beam power. The data from vertical and horizontal scans were combined to reconstruct the 2D functionality of the polycapillary optic. The flux density were almost four times higher with the 20 μm spot compared to the simulated 200 μm spot. This result correlated with the condition for total external reflection and the local divergence. The conclusion is that the small source spot of the liquid-metal-jet source improves the efficiency of the polycapillary optic.  The efficiency could still be improved, if the deviation in the pointing accuracy could be minimized. Furthermore, the combination of liquid-metal-jet x-ray source and the polycapillary optic, achieved extremely high flux densities. This was specially compared to an x-ray source used for confocal micro XRF, where the flux was almost nine times higher with the liquid-metal-jet x-ray source. This allows for faster measurements within confocal micro XRF and other techniques demanding very high flux densities, but with low demands on beam divergence and spectral purity.

No description available.

X-ray microscopy is a well-established technique for nanoscale imaging. Zone plates are used as microscope objectives and provide high resolution, approaching 10 nm, currently limited by fabrication issues. This Thesis presents zone plate optics that achieve either high resolution or phase contrast in x-ray microscopy. The high-resolution optics use high orders of the zone plate, which alleviates the demands on fabrication, and the phase-contrast optics are single-element diffractive optical elements that produce contrast by Zernike or differential-interference contrast methods. The advantage of phase contrast in x-ray microscopy is shorter exposure times, and is crucial in the hard x-ray regime. Microscopy in the absorption‑contrast region of the water-window (2.34 - 4.37 nm) also benefits from these optics. The development of the optics for a laboratory soft x-ray microscope spans from theoretical and numerical analysis of coherence and stray light to experimental implementation and testing. The laboratory microscope uses laser-produced plasma-sources in the water-window and is unique in its design and performance. It will be shown that the laboratory microscope in its current form is a user-oriented and stable instrument, and has been used in a number of applications. The implementation of a cryogenic sample stage for tomographic imaging of biological samples in their natural environment has enabled applications in biology, and 3D x-ray microscopy of cells was performed for the first time with a laboratory instrument. / QC 20101130

Hard x-ray free-electron lasers are novel sources of coherent x-rays with unprecedented brightness and very short pulses. The radiation from these sources enables a wide range of new experiments that were not possible with previous x-ray sources. Many of these experiments require the possibility to focus the intense x-ray beam onto small samples. This Thesis investigates the possibility to use diffractive zone plate optics to focus the radiation from hard x-ray free-electron lasers. The challenge for any optical element at free-electron laser sources is that the intensity in a single short pulses is high enough to potentially damage the optics. This is especially troublesome for zone plates, which are typically made of high Z elements that absorb a large part of the incident radiation. The first part of the Thesis is dedicated to simulations, where the temperature behavior of zone plates exposed to hard x-ray free-electron laser radiation is investigated. It is found that the temperature increase in a single pulse is several hundred Kelvin but still below the melting point of classical zone plate materials, such as gold, tungsten, and iridium. Even though the temperature increases are not high enough to melt a zone plate it is possible that stresses and strains caused by thermal expansion can damage the zone plate. This is first investigated in an experiment where tungsten gratings on diamond substrates are heated to high temperatures by a pulsed visible laser. It is found that the gratings are not damaged by the expected temperature fluctuations at free-electron lasers. Finally, a set of tungsten zone plates are tested at the Linac Coherent Light Source where they are exposed to a large number of pulses at varying fluence levels in a prefocused beam. Damage is only observed at fluence levels above those typically found in an unfocused x-ray free-electron laser beam. At higher fluences an alternative is to use a diamond zone plate, which has significantly less absorption and should be able to survive much higher fluence. Damage in diamond structures is investigated during the same experiment, but due to a remaining tungsten etch mask on top of the diamond the results are difficult to interpret. Additionally, we also demonstrate how the classical Ronchi test can be used to measure aberrations in focusing optics at an x-ray free-electron laser in a single pulse. The main result of this Thesis is that tungsten zone plates on diamond substrates can be used at hard x-ray free-electron laser sources. / <p>QC 20130514</p>

Graduation date: 1993

This Thesis describes the development of hard X-ray zone plates intended for focusing radiation at X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs). XFELs provide unprecedented brightness and zone plates which are put in the intense X-ray beam are at risk of being damaged. Therefore, it is crucial to perform damage tests in order to design zone plates which can survive the XFEL beam. Zone plates are diffractive nanofocusing optics and are regularly used at high brightness synchrotron beamlines in the soft and hard X-ray regime. The resolution of a zone plate is proportional to its outermost zonewidth and thus depends on the smallest feature that can be fabricated. State-of-the-art nanofabrication processes developed for zone plates are able to produce zonewidths down to 10 nm. However, for hard X-rays, the zone plates need to be of sufficient thickness to efficiently focus the radiation. Thus, the limit in the fabrication of hard X-ray zone plates lies in the high aspect-ratios. This Thesis describes two processes developed for high aspect-ratio nanostructuring. The first process uses tungsten as diffractive material. Aspect-ratios up to 1:15 have been accomplished. Furthermore, a mounting method of a central stop directly on the zone plate is also presented. The other fabrication process uses diamond, in which aspect-ratios of 1:30 have been demonstrated. Both processes rely on thin-film deposition techniques, electron-beam lithography, and reactive ion etching. Thanks to the materials’ excellent thermal properties these types of zone plates should be suitable for XFEL applications. Tungsten and diamond diffractive optics have been tested at an XFEL at Stanford (LCLS), and damage investigations were performed in order to determine the maximum fluence that could be imposed on the optics before degradation occured. The conclusion of these damage tests is that tungsten and diamond diffractive optics can survive the XFEL beam and could potentially be used in beamline experiments relying on nanofocused X-ray beams. Finally in this Thesis, characterization of two zone plates using an interferometer is presented, where it is also shown that the interferometric method can be used to pin-point beamline instabilities. / <p>QC 20150112</p>