3D Nanoprinted Plastic Kinoform X‐Ray Optics

Abstract

High-performance focusing of X-rays requires the realization of very challenging 3D geometries with nanoscale features, sub-millimeter-scale apertures, and high aspect ratios. A particularly difficult structure is the profile of an ideal zone plate called a kinoform, which is manufactured in nonideal approximated patterns, nonetheless requires complicated multistep fabrication processes. Here, 3D fabrication of high-performance kinoforms with unprecedented aspect ratios out of low-loss plastics using femtosecond two-photon 3D nanoprinting is presented. A thorough characterization of the 3D-printed kinoforms using direct soft X-ray imaging and ptychography demonstrates superior performance with an efficiency reaching up to 20%. An extended concept is proposed for on-chip integration of various X-ray optics toward high-fidelity control of X-ray wavefronts and ultimate efficiencies even for harder X-rays. Initial results establish new, advanced focusing optics for both synchrotron and laboratory sources for a large variety of X-ray techniques and applications ranging from materials science to medicine.

New Concepts for 3D Optics in X-ray Microscopy

“…Our advanced, fast and cost-effective fabrication routes allow a faithful reproduction of the parabolic Kinoform profile while offering virtually unlimited optical thickness, hence can effectively target also high energy X-rays. A high measured focusing efficiency reaching 20% in soft X-rays match the theoretical expectations (reaching up to 95% of the theoretical values) proving the applicability of the suggested technique [8].…”

“…For advancing the resolution of the X-ray ptychography, we introduced new and advanced 3D Kinoform type optics [4,7,8]. Their focusing performance with respect to both resolution and efficiency were tested by direct ptychographic imaging using soft X-rays up to 2 keV as the first step.…”

Correction of the X-ray wavefront from compound refractive lenses using 3D printed refractive structures

“…The 3D printer is based on the two-photon polymerization process (Photonic Professional GT2 datasheet, https://www.nanoscribe.com/fileadmin/Nanoscribe/Solutions/ Photonic_Professional_GT2/DataSheet_PPGT2.pdf, Nano-Scribe GmbH), which is capable of patterning arbitrary 3D shapes with micrometre or nanometre resolution. This printer was employed in many state-of-the-art device developments (Dietrich et al, 2018) and was recently used in X-ray optics developments (Sanli et al, 2018;Petrov et al, 2017;Lyobomirskiy, Koch et al, 2017). The same 3D printer is used for the development of corrector plates.…”

Optical performance and radiation stability of polymer X-ray refractive nano-lenses

“…For the aforementioned applications, polymer refractive lenses were recently demonstrated to be efficient (Petrov et al, 2017;Sanli et al, 2018;Mirzaeimohri et al, 2018). Produced from a homogeneous polymer material by additive manufacturing, polymer lenses have compact dimensions, small radii and two-dimensional parabolic shapes.…”