The new ANATOMIX beamline at Synchrotron SOLEIL is dedicated to hard X-ray full-field tomography techniques. Operating in a range of photon energies from approximately 5 to 50 keV, it offers both parallel-beam projection microtomography and nanotomography using a zone-plate transmission X-ray microscope and thus covers a range of spatial resolution from 20 nm to 20 µm, expressed in terms of useful pixel size. Here we describe the microtomography instrumentation and its performance.

A new high‐vacuum multipurpose diffractometer (called FORTE from the French acronyms of the project) has recently been installed at the tender/hard X‐ray SIRIUS beamline of Synchrotron SOLEIL, France. The geometry chosen allows one to work either in the classical Eulerian four‐circle geometry for bulk X‐ray diffraction (XRD) or in the z‐axis geometry for surface XRD. The diffractometer nicely fits the characteristics of the SIRIUS beamline, optimized to work in the 1.1–4.5 keV range, and allows one to perform unprecedented diffraction anomalous fine structure (DAFS) experiments in the tender X‐ray region, also around non‐specular reflections, covering a large reciprocal‐space volume. Installation of an X‐ray fluorescence detector on a dedicated flange allows simultaneous DAFS and X‐ray absorption (XAS) measurements. The access to the tender X‐ray region paves the way to resonant investigations around the L‐edges of second‐row transition elements which are constituents of functional oxide materials. It also enables access to several edges of interest for semiconductors. Finally, the control architecture based on synchronized Delta Tau units opens up exciting perspectives for improvement of the mechanical sphere of confusion.

A new photon‐counting camera based on hybrid pixel technology has been developed at the SOLEIL synchrotron, making it possible to implement pump–probe–probe hard X‐ray diffraction experiments for the first time. This application relies on two specific advantages of the UFXC32k readout chip, namely its high frame rate (50 kHz) and its high linear count rate (2.6 × 106 photons s−1 pixel−1). The project involved the conception and realization of the chips and detector carrier board, the data acquisition system, the server with its specific software, as well as the mechanical and cooling systems. This article reports on in‐laboratory validation tests of the new detector, as well as on tests performed at the CRISTAL beamline within the targeted experimental conditions. A benchmark experiment was successfully performed, showing the advantages of the pump–probe–probe scheme in correcting for drifts of the experimental conditions.

Among the techniques that are being implemented on the imaging beamline ANATOMIX at Synchrotron SOLEIL [1,2], hard X-ray full-field microscopy is of paramount importance. The transmission X-ray microscope (TXM) on ANATOMIX, based on diffractive optics, is designed for photon energies around three working values of 6.6, 10 and 18 keV. It aims at a spatial resolution down to 100 nm or less, corresponding to pixel sizes down to 30 nm.The diffractive optics for the TXM-beam shapers (condensers), objective zone plates and phase masks for Zernike phase contrast-are manufactured at the Laboratory for Micro-and Nanotechnology of the Paul Scherrer Institut in Villigen, Switzerland. A first set of beam shapers and objectives has been produced, and tests in absorption contrast were recently conducted, using a temporary mechanical setup.These test measurements were carried out with a set of optics designed for 10 keV: a beam shaper [3] illuminating a field of view of 40 × 40 µm², with a physical aperture of 2.5 mm diameter and smallest zones of 50 nm width, and objective zone plates of the same outermost zone width and a diameter of 100 µm, resulting in a focal length of 40 mm at 10 keV. The diffractive X-ray optics were made of iridium using the frequency-doubling method [4], with structure heights of about 1 µm for the beam shaper and 1.6 µm for the objective zone plates, which were patterned on both sides of the membrane [5]. Other elements included a central stop placed a few cm upstream of the beam shaper, an orderselecting aperture (OSA, pinhole with 0.3 mm diameter) 70 mm from the sample and a diffuser (sheets of paper) placed upstream of the OSA. Two indirect, lens-coupled detectors were used: one for alignment, placed just downstream of the objective zone plate and consisting of a 22-µm-thick lutetium aluminum garnet (LuAG) scintillator, a 10× magnifying microscope optics and a CMOS-based digital camera with 6.5-µm pixels (Hamamatsu Orca Flash 4 V2), resulting in an effective pixel size of 0.65 µm. The other detector, used to record the actual TXM micrographs, was placed 4.5 m downstream of the objective zone plate and composed of a 100-µm-thick scintillator, photo-camera optics with an overall magnification of 3.4 and a CCD camera (PCO 4000, 9-µm pixels) using 2×2 pixel binning, resulting in an effective detector pixel size of 5.3 µm. Including the X-ray magnification factor of 110, this resulted in a pixel size of 49 nm at sample level. The alignment detector and sample stage were mounted on standard translation stages (Huber Diffraktionstechnik, Rimsting, Germany), the TXM optics on piezo-based translation stages (SmarAct, Oldenburg, Germany). Figure 1 shows a TXM micrograph obtained with this setup on a resolution test chart (model XRESO-50, NTT-AT, Japan; tantalum structures of 500 nm height). The smallest structures in the center of this reference sample of "Siemens-star" type, resolved in the image (see inset of Figure 1), have a period of 100 nm and are thus just at the Nyquist limit of resolution for the p...

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