On the Quantitative Use of the Foucault Knife-Edge Test

Metrology for the Advancement of X-ray Optics at the ALS

“…In what is commonly called the Foucault test [29], the array's x and y knife edges are scanned through the beam near focus. Either the CCD or a photodiode can be used to measure the transmitted light intensity past the knife-edge.…”

“…Relatively opaque materials such as gold and nickel support robust, binary patterns, with EUV and soft X-ray wavelength-scale feature sizes and high-aspect ratios (i.e., thick with narrow grooves) when required. The Nanowriter electron-beam lithography tool at LBNL's Center for X-ray Optics has specialized control hardware for generating curved shapes at high resolutions [29]. These optics can be created on thin membranes, such as silicon-nitride, or as free-standing, stencil-type patterns for higher efficiency.…”

Enhanced quantitative X-ray phase-contrast images using Foucault differential filters

“…This improvement was accompanied by the development of spatial filters. The knife-edge test was reported for extraction of quantitative measurement of a nonsymmetric surface [7] . A phase-shift imaging method based on the multiline filter in the conventional Schlieren and phase-shift technique has been reported [8] .…”

Interaction of attosecond and femtosecond pulses with atoms and molecules

“…There is a large variety of optical wavefront techniques, i.e., Hartmann-Shack [131], lateral shearing interferometry [130], Foucault knife-edge test, [132], etc. The lateral shearing is one of the most simple implementations to reconstruct the laser beam wavefront.…”

“…This optical method reconstructs the spatial wavefront of the laser beam by a simple interferometry scheme [130]. In this method two copies is created and then the spatial shearing are introduced in the two perpendicular directions [132,133,134]. From the resulting two interferograms the two partial derivatives along the perpendicular directions, i.e., ∂φ ∂x and ∂φ ∂y , are recovered.…”