MICROFOCUSING OPTICS FOR COHERENT HIGH ENERGY X-RAYS

Irina Snigireva

ESRF, B. P. 220, 38043 Grenoble, France

X-ray diffraction, fluorescence and imaging are very powerful techniques for the nondestructive studies in material science and biology. Despite their great chemical and crystallographic sensitivities, X-ray microprobe techniques have been restricted by inefficient X-ray focusing optics and weak X-ray sources. Successful commissioning and operation of the third generation of the synchrotron radiation sources such as ESRF allow to make a remarkable progress in the development of the high energy coherent optics. It has been demonstrated that micro and submicrometer beams can be easily generated with Bragg-Fresnel Optics, Fresnel Zone Plates and Compound refractive lenses in the energy range from 5 to 100 keV. The microimaging, diffraction and fluorescence beamline ID22 at the ESRF has been successfully commissioned and many different microbeam applications to study samples from biology, geology and material science have been performed. Combining high resolution reciprocal space mappings with diffraction topography on a sub-micrometer scale for strain deformation analysis of microelectronics structures was realized.