Spectromicroscopy at the XM-1

The XM-1 x-ray microscope was built to obtain high-resolution transmission images from a wide variety of thick (< 10 micron) samples. Modeled after a conventional full-field microscope, XM-1 makes use of zone plates for the condenser and objective elements. Recent work has enabled the microscope to be used for spectroscopic imaging as well. The bandwidth of light on the sample is limited by a linear monochromator which is formed by the combination of a condenser zone plate (CZP) and a pinhole at the sample plane. This combination gives a good spectral resolution which has been measured to be lambda/Deltalambda = 700. This is high enough to be able to distinguish between different elements and even some chemical states on the same scale as the spatial resolution of the instrument which is 36 nm. The measured spectral resolution and the calculated spectral resolution will both be shown.