scholarly journals High-resolution achromatic X-ray optical systems for broad-band imaging and for focusing attosecond pulses

Author(s):  
H. N. Chapman ◽  
S. Bajt

Achromatic focusing systems for hard X-rays are examined which consist of a refractive lens paired with a diffractive lens. Compared with previous analyses, we take into account the behaviour of thick refractive lenses, such as compound refractive lenses and waveguide gradient index refractive lenses, in which both the focal length and the position of the principal planes vary with wavelength. Achromatic systems formed by the combination of such a thick refractive lens with a multilayer Laue lens are found that can operate at a focusing resolution of about 3 nm, over a relative bandwidth of about 1%. With the appropriate distance between the refractive and diffractive lenses, apochromatic systems can also be found, which operate over relative bandwidth greater than 10%. These systems can be used to focus short pulses without distorting them in time by more than several attoseconds. Such systems are suitable for high-flux scanning microscopy and for creating high intensities from attosecond X-ray pulses.

Author(s):  
H. Ostadi ◽  
Marino Arroyo ◽  
P. D. Prewett ◽  
S. E. Huq

Micro-Electro-Opto-Mechanical-Systems or MOEMS have potential applications inter alia in biomedical research. For instance, studies of the Bystander Effect require controlled irradiation of biological cells with focused X-rays to reveal the mechanisms occurring. X-ray focusing may be achieved using an adaptive optic micro-lens in which focusing is entirely reflective and therefore compatible with broad band illumination, an improvement over diffractive systems such as zone plates. Such a micro-lens can be microfabricated in the form of a bent-cantilever beam made from two dissimilar materials (polyimide and gold) in a thermal bimorph configuration, actuated with a micro heater. The parallel horizontal slots on the beam provide the transmission and focusing functions, while the heater provides control of the focal length through variation of the beam’s curvature. This novel system has been named 1D-MOXI (Micro-Opto-X-ray Imaging) and a basic system has already been made and tested thermo-mechanically. The present paper focuses on details of the geometry of the deformed slotted micro-beam lens element under thermally derived strain, using finite element analysis, and suggests an optimized MOEMS design, giving prescribed curvature of the lens through changing the number and the dimensions of the slots. The study reveals the localized stress and the small deviations of the micro-lens behavior from that of perfect spherical geometry. The focal length variation with temperature is compared with the experimental values and those predicted by an analytical model.


2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (a1) ◽  
pp. C1733-C1733
Author(s):  
Martin Fuchs ◽  
Robert Sweet ◽  
Lonny Berman ◽  
Dileep Bhogadi ◽  
Wayne Hendrickson ◽  
...  

We present the final design of the x-ray optical systems and experimental stations of the two macromolecular crystallography (MX) beamlines, FMX and AMX, at the National Synchrotron Light Source-II (NSLS-II). Along with its companion x-ray scattering beamline, LIX, this suite of Advanced Beamlines for Biological Investigations with X-rays (ABBIX, [1]) will begin user operation in 2016. The pair of MX beamlines with complementary and overlapping capabilities is located at canted undulators (IVU21) in sector 17-ID. The Frontier Microfocusing Macromolecular Crystallography beamline (FMX) will deliver a photon flux of ~5x10^12 ph/s at a wavelength of 1 Å into a spot of 1 - 50 µm size. It will cover a broad energy range from 5 - 30 keV, corresponding to wavelengths from 0.4 - 2.5 Å. The highly Automated Macromolecular Crystallography beamline (AMX) will be optimized for high throughput applications, with beam sizes from 4 - 100 µm, an energy range of 5 - 18 keV (0.7 - 2.5 Å), and a flux at 1 Å of ~10^13 ph/s. Central components of the in-house-developed experimental stations are a 100 nm sphere of confusion goniometer with a horizontal axis, piezo-slits to provide dynamic beam size changes during diffraction experiments, a dedicated secondary goniometer for crystallization plates, and sample- and plate-changing robots. FMX and AMX will support a broad range of biomedical structure determination methods from serial crystallography on micron-sized crystals, to structure determination of complexes in large unit cells, to rapid sample screening and data collection of crystals in trays, for instance to characterize membrane protein crystals and to conduct ligand-binding studies. Together with the solution scattering program at LIX, the new beamlines will offer unique opportunities for advanced diffraction experiments with micro- and mini-beams, with next generation hybrid pixel array detectors and emerging crystal delivery methods such as acoustic droplet ejection. This work is supported by the US National Institutes of Health.


1994 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 63-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Churazov ◽  
M. Gilfanov ◽  
A. Finoguenov ◽  
R. Sunyaev ◽  
M. Chernyakova ◽  
...  

Brief review of AGNs observations in the X-ray / soft gamma-ray bands with the orbital observatory GRANAT is presented.For three well known bright objects (3C273, NGC4151 and Cen A) broad band (3 keV–few hundreds keV) spectra have been obtained. Imaging capabilities allowed accurate (several arcminutes) identification of these objects with sources of hard X-rays.The spectrum of NGC4151 above ≈ 50 keV was found to be much steeper than that in most of the previous observations, while in standard X-ray band the spectrum agrees with observed previously. The comparison of the observed spectra with that of the X-Ray Background (XRB) indicates that sources similar to NGC4151 could reproduce the shape of XRB spectrum in 3–60 keV band.Cen A was observed in the very low state during most of observations in 1990–1993, except for two observations in 1991. The variability of the hard X-ray flux has been detected on the time scales of several days.


2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (1) ◽  
pp. 648-655
Author(s):  
M Chernyakova ◽  
D Malyshev ◽  
S Mc Keague ◽  
B van Soelen ◽  
J P Marais ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT PSR B1259-63 is a gamma-ray binary system hosting a radio pulsar orbiting around an O9.5Ve star, LS 2883, with a period of ∼3.4 yr. The interaction of the pulsar wind with the LS 2883 outflow leads to unpulsed broad-band emission in the radio, X-rays, GeV, and TeV domains. While the radio, X-ray, and TeV light curves show rather similar behaviour, the GeV light curve appears very different with a huge outburst about a month after a periastron. The energy release during this outburst seems to significantly exceed the spin-down luminosity of the pulsar and both the GeV light curve and the energy release vary from one orbit to the next. In this paper, we present for the first time the results of optical observations of the system in 2017, and also reanalyse the available X-ray and GeV data. We present a new model in which the GeV data are explained as a combination of the bremsstrahlung and inverse Compton emission from the unshocked and weakly shocked electrons of the pulsar wind. The X-ray and TeV emission is produced by synchrotron and inverse Compton emission of energetic electrons accelerated on a strong shock arising due to stellar/pulsar winds collision. The brightness of the GeV flare is explained in our model as a beaming effect of the energy released in a cone oriented, during the time of the flare, in the direction of the observer.


2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1082-1086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric M. Dufresne ◽  
Robert W. Dunford ◽  
Elliot P. Kanter ◽  
Yuan Gao ◽  
Seoksu Moon ◽  
...  

The performance of a cooled Be compound refractive lens (CRL) has been tested at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) to enable vertical focusing of the pink beam and permit the X-ray beam to spatially overlap with an 80 µm-high low-density plasma that simulates astrophysical environments. Focusing the fundamental harmonics of an insertion device white beam increases the APS power density; here, a power density as high as 500 W mm−2was calculated. A CRL is chromatic so it does not efficiently focus X-rays whose energies are above the fundamental. Only the fundamental of the undulator focuses at the experiment. A two-chopper system reduces the power density on the imaging system and lens by four orders of magnitude, enabling imaging of the focal plane without any X-ray filter. A method to measure such high power density as well as the performance of the lens in focusing the pink beam is reported.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanfei Yan ◽  
Hyon Chol Kang ◽  
Ray Conley ◽  
Chian Liu ◽  
Albert T. Macrander ◽  
...  

The multilayer Laue lens (MLL) is a novel diffractive optic for hard X-ray nanofocusing, which is fabricated by thin film deposition techniques and takes advantage of the dynamical diffraction effect to achieve a high numerical aperture and efficiency. It overcomes two difficulties encountered in diffractive optics fabrication for focusing hard X-rays: (1) small outmost zone width and (2) high aspect ratio. Here, we will give a review on types, modeling approaches, properties, fabrication, and characterization methods of MLL optics. We show that a full-wave dynamical diffraction theory has been developed to describe the dynamical diffraction property of the MLL and has been employed to design the optimal shapes for nanofocusing. We also show a 16 nm line focus obtained by a partial MLL and several characterization methods. Experimental results show a good agreement with the theoretical calculations. With the continuing development of MLL optics, we believe that an MLL-based hard x-ray microscope with true nanometer resolution is on the horizon.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 756-761
Author(s):  
Yoko Takeo ◽  
Hiroto Motoyama ◽  
Yasunori Senba ◽  
Hikaru Kishimoto ◽  
Haruhiko Ohashi ◽  
...  

Probing the spatial coherence of X-rays has become increasingly important when designing advanced optical systems for beamlines at synchrotron radiation sources and free-electron lasers. Double-slit experiments at various slit widths are a typical method of quantitatively measuring the spatial coherence over a wide wavelength range including the X-ray region. However, this method cannot be used for the analysis of spatial coherence when the two evaluation points are separated by a large distance of the order of millimetres owing to the extremely narrow spacing between the interference fringes. A Fresnel-mirror-based optical system can produce interference patterns by crossing two beams from two small mirrors separated in the transverse direction to the X-ray beam. The fringe spacing can be controlled via the incidence angles on the mirrors. In this study, a Fresnel-mirror-based optical system was constructed at the soft X-ray beamline (BL25SU) of SPring-8. The relationship between the coherence and size of the virtual source was quantitatively measured at 300 eV in both the vertical and horizontal directions using the beam. The results obtained indicate that this is a valuable method for the optimization of optical systems along beamlines.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 927-936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Morgan ◽  
Kevin T. Murray ◽  
Mauro Prasciolu ◽  
Holger Fleckenstein ◽  
Oleksandr Yefanov ◽  
...  

The ever-increasing brightness of synchrotron radiation sources demands improved X-ray optics to utilize their capability for imaging and probing biological cells, nano-devices and functional matter on the nanometre scale with chemical sensitivity. Hard X-rays are ideal for high-resolution imaging and spectroscopic applications owing to their short wavelength, high penetrating power and chemical sensitivity. The penetrating power that makes X-rays useful for imaging also makes focusing them technologically challenging. Recent developments in layer deposition techniques have enabled the fabrication of a series of highly focusing X-ray lenses, known as wedged multi-layer Laue lenses. Improvements to the lens design and fabrication technique demand an accurate, robust, in situ and at-wavelength characterization method. To this end, a modified form of the speckle tracking wavefront metrology method has been developed. The ptychographic X-ray speckle tracking method is capable of operating with highly divergent wavefields. A useful by-product of this method is that it also provides high-resolution and aberration-free projection images of extended specimens. Three separate experiments using this method are reported, where the ray path angles have been resolved to within 4 nrad with an imaging resolution of 45 nm (full period). This method does not require a high degree of coherence, making it suitable for laboratory-based X-ray sources. Likewise, it is robust to errors in the registered sample positions, making it suitable for X-ray free-electron laser facilities, where beam-pointing fluctuations can be problematic for wavefront metrology.


2004 ◽  
Vol 218 ◽  
pp. 247-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
GianLuca Israel ◽  
Luigi Stella ◽  
Stefano Covino ◽  
Sergio Campana ◽  
Lorella Angelini ◽  
...  

During 2002–2003 the number of IR-identified counterparts to the Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs) has grown to four (4U 0142+61, IE 2259+586, IE 1048.1−5937 and RXS J170849−400910) out of the six objects (plus two candidates) known in this class. More importantly, some new common characteristics have been identified, such as IR variability, IR flattening in the broad-band energy spectrum, X-ray spectral variability as a function of pulse phase (which are not predicted by the magnetar model), and X-ray bursts (which cannot be explained in terms of standard accretion models). We present the results obtained from an extensive multi-wavelength observational campaign carried out with the NTT and CFHT for the optical/IR bands, and XMM and Chandra (plus BeppoSAX archival data) in X-rays. Based on these results and those reported in the literature, the IR-to-X-ray emission of AXPs is compared.


2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Antipov ◽  
S. V. Baryshev ◽  
J. E. Butler ◽  
O. Antipova ◽  
Z. Liu ◽  
...  

The fabrication and performance evaluation of single-crystal diamond refractive X-ray lenses of which the surfaces are paraboloids of revolution for focusing X-rays in two dimensions simultaneously are reported. The lenses were manufactured using a femtosecond laser micromachining process and tested using X-ray synchrotron radiation. Such lenses were stacked together to form a standard compound refractive lens (CRL). Owing to the superior physical properties of the material, diamond CRLs could become indispensable wavefront-preserving primary focusing optics for X-ray free-electron lasers and the next-generation synchrotron storage rings. They can be used for highly efficient refocusing of the extremely bright X-ray sources for secondary optical schemes with limited aperture such as nanofocusing Fresnel zone plates and multilayer Laue lenses.


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