Hard X-ray nanoprobe based on refractive X-ray lenses

At synchrotron radiation sources, parabolic refractive x-ray lenses allow one to built both full field and scanning microscopes in the hard x-ray range, The latter microscope can be operated in transmission, fluorescence, and diffraction mode, giving chemical, elemental, and structural contrast. For scanning microscopy, a small and intensive microbeam is required. Parabolic refractive x-ray lenses with a focal distance in the centimeter range, so-called nanofocusing lenses (NFLs), can generate hard x-ray nanobeams in the range of 100 nm and below, even at short distances, i. e., 40 to 70 m from the source. Recently, a 47 x 55 nm(2) beam with 1.7 - 10(8) ph/s at 21 keV (monochromatic, Si 111) was generated using silicon NFLs in crossed geometry at a distance of 47m from the undulator source at beamline ID13 of ESRF. This beam is not diffraction limited, and smaller beams may become available in the future. Lenses made of more transparent materials, such as boron or diamond, could yield an increase in flux of one order of magnitude and have a larger numerical aperture. For these NFLs, diffraction limits below 20 nm are conceivable. Using adiabatically focusing lenses, the diffraction limit can in principle be pushed below 5 nm.