Germanium-Based Circular Zone Plates for Soft and Hard X-Rays

Abstract

Abstract. Development of a technological basis for the fabrication of diffraction optical elements has been underway at Synchrotron SOLEIL since April 2009. These diffraction focusing elements are: zone plates and condenser lenses for soft x-rays (80-2500 eV), focusing zone plates for hard x-rays (4-24 keV), and diffraction elements working under complete external reflection conditions with elliptical diffraction zones and a topology appropriate to operate at a glancing incidence to fulfill the conditions of total external reflection (energy range 100-1500 eV). This work discusses fabrication of circular germanium-based zone plates and results of numerical calculations of the behavior of zone plates with real topologies under real experimental conditions. The software used for these calculations allows us to take into account the undercut of zones that occurs after plasmachemical etching as well as variations in the zone heights. Such variations could be used to correct or improve zone plate efficiency after electroplating or plasmachemical etching and can be performed by a focused ion beam etching [1] (direct or with active gas assistance). Data preparation and ion beam control for these corrections can be carried out by Nanomaker software (Interface Ltd).