X-ray polarimeter with a transmission multilayer

Abstract

We fabricated a novel x-ray polarimeter with a transmission multilayer and measured its performance with synchrotron radiation. A self standing multilayer with seven Mo/Si bilayers was installed with an incident angle of 45 degrees in front of a back-illuminated CCD. The multilayer can be rotated around the normal direction of the CCD keeping an incident angle of 45 degrees. This polarimeter can be easily installed along the optical axis of x-ray optics. By using the CCD as a photon counting detector with a moderate energy resolution, the polarization of photons in a designed energy band can be measured along with the image. At high photon energies, where the multilayer is transparent, the polarimeter can be used for imaging and spectroscopic observations. We confirmed a modulation factor of 45% with 45% and 17% transmission for P- and S-polarization, respectively.

Generation of circularly polarized radiation from a compact plasma-based extreme ultraviolet light source for tabletop X-ray magnetic circular dichroism studies

“…Therefore, a complete polarization analysis is usually performed at synchrotrons with sophisticated polarimetric and ellipsometric instruments. [9][10][11] In a small-scale laboratory, various EUV and soft X-ray light sources are available, but only few of them are a priori polarized. While linearly polarized EUV light is routinely generated by intense ultrashort laser pulses, 12 only few attempts to either polarize EUV radiation circularly 13,14 or directly generate circular EUV radiation from a femtosecond laser 15 have been reported from laboratory-based experiments.…”

A new x-ray interferometer

“…We propose a new idea using a beam splitter with multi layers, which has a moderate band path with λ/(δλ) ∼ 10 (for example Kitamoto et al (2010) 16 ). By using a beam splitter, we can align two beams on one line.…”

Improving the soft X-ray reflectivity of Cr/Ti multilayers by co-deposition of B4C

“…Multilayer coatings for the soft X-ray region have drawn a great deal of attention due to their vital importance in highresolution microscopes, deep-space telescopes, and soft X-ray polarimetry (Artyukov et al, 2009;Windt et al, 2004;Kitamoto et al, 2010). In these applications, reflectivity is one of the most critical parameters of a multilayer.…”