The hard x-ray nanotomography microscope at the advanced light source

Abstract

Beamline 11.3.1 at the Advanced Light Source is a tender/hard (6-17 keV) X-ray beamline recently repurposed with a new full-field, nanoscale transmission X-ray microscope (nTXM). The endstation is suited to 50-250 µm samples of (generally) non-biological materials and has a theoretical resolution of 55 nm. The microscope is used in tandem with a 25 nm eccentricity rotation stage for high-resolution volume imaging using nanoscale computed tomography (nCT). The system also features a novel bipolar illumination condenser for the illumination of a ~100 µm spot of interest of the sample, followed by a phase-type zone plate magnifying objective with a ~52 m field of view, and a phase detection ring. The zone plate serves as the system objective and magnifies the sample with projection onto an indirect X-ray detection system, consisting of a polished single crystal CsI(Tl) scintillator and a range of high-quality plan fluorite visible light objectives that in turn project the final visible light image onto a water-cooled CMOS 2048x2048 pixel 2 detector. Here we will discuss the salient features of this instrument, and describe our initial efforts to experimentally observe the internal 3D micro-and nanostructure of some highlighted materials, including composites and rocks.