A study of structural effects on the focusing and imaging performance of hard X-rays with 20-30 nm zone plates.

J Synchrotron Radiat

Diamond Light Source Ltd, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, United Kingdom.

Published: November 2024

AI Article Synopsis

  • Hard X-ray microscopes provide high-resolution imaging at the nanoscale, but the efficiency of their focusing optics, like Fresnel zone plates (ZPs), limits their performance.
  • Researchers optimized the structural design of ZPs by adjusting the zone width and duty cycle to improve focusing and imaging efficiency, resulting in higher performance for hard X-ray applications.
  • The study demonstrated that the optimized Pt-hydrogen silsesquioxane ZPs achieved significant improvements in efficiency, with up to 10% at 30 nm resolution and notable enhancements across various hard X-ray energies.

Article Abstract

Hard X-ray microscopes with 20-30 nm spatial resolution ranges are an advanced tool for the inspection of materials at the nanoscale. However, the limited efficiency of the focusing optics, for example, a Fresnel zone plate (ZP) lens, can significantly reduce the power of a nanoprobe. Despite several reports on ZP lenses that focus hard X-rays with 20 nm resolution - mainly constructed by zone-doubling techniques - a systematic investigation into the limiting factors has not been reported. We report the structural effects on the focusing and imaging efficiency of 20-30 nm-resolution ZPs, employing a modified beam-propagation method. The zone width and the duty cycle (zone width/ring pitch) were optimized to achieve maximum efficiency, and a comparative analysis of the zone materials was conducted. The optimized zone structures were used in the fabrication of Pt-hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) ZPs. The highest focusing efficiency of the Pt-HSQ-ZP with a resolution of 30 nm was 10% at 7 keV and >5% in the range 6-10 keV, whereas the highest efficiency of the Pt-HSQ-ZP with a resolution of 20 nm was realized at 7 keV with an efficiency of 7.6%. Optical characterization conducted at X-ray beamlines demonstrated significant enhancement of the focusing and imaging efficiency in a broader range of hard X-rays from 5 keV to 10 keV, demonstrating the potential application in hard X-ray focusing and imaging.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11542644PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S1600577524009615DOI Listing

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