Advanced experimental applications for x-ray transmission gratings spectroscopy using a novel grating fabrication method

Abstract

A novel fabrication method for soft x-ray transmission grating and other optical elements is presented. The method uses focused-ion-beam technology to fabricate high-quality free standing grating bars on transmission electron microscopy grids. High quality transmission gratings are obtained with superb accuracy and versatility. Using these gratings and back-illuminated CCD camera, absolutely calibrated x-ray spectra can be acquired for soft x-ray source diagnostics in the 100-3000 eV spectral range. Double grating combinations of identical or different parameters are easily fabricated, allowing advanced one-shot application of transmission grating spectroscopy. These applications include spectroscopy with different spectral resolutions, bandwidths, dynamic ranges, and may serve for identification of high-order contribution, and spectral calibrations of various x-ray optical elements.

Quasi suppression of higher-order diffractions with inclined rectangular apertures gratings

“…They also play a crucial role in the extreme ultraviolet and x-ray regions. Their applications range from laboratory-generated and astrophysical plasma diagnosis to synchrotron radiation light monochromator 3 4 5 6 7 . From its very beginning, conventional binary (black and white) transmission gratings (TGs) are composed of lots of evenly spaced parallel slits on an opaque screen.…”

Hybrid lithography for x-ray diffractive optical elements

“…1 Existing lithographic techniques for nanopatterning include electron-beam lithography, 2,3 interference lithography, 4 and focused-ion-beam technology. 5 Using interference lithography, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Space Nanotechnology Laboratory have fabricated a large number of x-ray transmission gratings for laser plasma fusion and space flight missions. 6 However, this approach is limited to periodic geometries and (as with all the aforementioned techniques) often requires multilayer resist processes to obtain nanometer structures with high aspect ratio.…”