This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: An international research team from Germany, Switzerland and Japan has demonstrated in a recent study that a single reflection zone plate (RZP) can perform both soft X-ray imaging and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) mapping. The approach could simplify future instruments that need to determine both where structures are located in a material and how their electronic properties vary.
The study, which was published in Optics Express, was carried out at the P04 beamline of the PETRA III synchrotron radiation source at DESY in Hamburg. The researchers used an RZP, a precisely nanostructured reflective optic that simultaneously focuses and disperses soft X-rays. Conventional X-ray imaging provides spatial information about a sample, whereas spectroscopy reveals its electronic structure, chemical bonding and excited states.
Combining the two capabilities usually requires several optical components and demanding alignment procedures. In the new work, the RZP acts as an all-in-one element for reflection, focusing, imaging and spectral dispersion. "Our experiments show that an RZP can provide both spatial and spectroscopic information using a compact optical arrangement," said Dr.
"This could make advanced soft X-ray measurements more efficient and easier to implement." To demonstrate the imaging capability, the team examined test structures containing Siemens stars and the letters "RIXS." Instead of recording the sample point by point, the researchers illuminated it with a narrow X-ray line and moved the sample stepwise across the beam. Individual image stripes were then computationally combined to reconstruct the complete two-dimensional image. The method resolved structures with a spatial resolution of approximately 14–24 μm.
For circular objects, the line-scanning approach was about 27 times faster than a conventional two-dimensional point-by-point scan performed with comparable spatial sampling. Before this study, it was thought that such work would not be possible due to the Abbe sine condition, which was formulated by the German scientist Ernst Abbe in the 19th century. It is a necessary condition for imaging a small area element, located close to the axis and perpendicular to it, free of aberrations.
A key feature of the experiment was that the RZP operated in the paraxial regime, in which only a restricted angular range of the emitted X-rays was accepted. This substantially reduced the optical aberrations that would otherwise distort images of extended objects. "The strong dispersion of the RZP allows several spectroscopic features to be measured simultaneously," said Dr.
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