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An Nd:YAG pulsed laser was employed to irradiate a nitrogen gas-puff target. The interaction gives rise to the emission of soft X-ray (SXR) radiation in the ‘water window’ spectral range (λ= 2.3÷4.4 nm). This source was already successfully employed to perform the SXR microscopy. In this work, a Silicon Carbide (SiC) detector was used to characterize the nitrogen plasma emission in terms of gas-puff target parameters. The measurements show applicability of SiC detectors for SXR plasma characterization.

A compact, desktop size microscope, based on laser-plasma source and equipped with reflective condenser and diffractive Fresnel zone plate objective, operating in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) region at the wavelength of 13.8 nm, was developed. The microscope is capable of capturing magnified images of objects with 95-nm full-pitch spatial resolution (48 nm 25–75% KE) and exposure time as low as a few seconds, combining reasonable acquisition conditions with stand-alone desktop footprint. Such EUV microscope can be regarded as a complementary imaging tool to already existing, well-established ones. Details about the microscope, characterization, resolution estimation and real sample images are presented and discussed.

A compact microscope based on nitrogen double stream gas puff target soft X-ray source, which emits radiation in the water-window spectral range, at the wavelength of λ = 2.88 nm, is presented. The microscope, employing ellipsoidal grazing incidence condenser and a Fresnel zone plate objective, is capable of capturing images with a 60 nm spatial resolution and exposure time as low as a few seconds. Examples of different applications of the SXR microscopy, and its applicability for various fields of science, are presented and discussed.

A compact size microscope based on nitrogen double stream gas puff target soft X-ray source, which emits radiation in water-window spectral range at the wavelength of λ = 2.88 nm is presented. The microscope employs ellipsoidal grazing incidence condenser mirror for sample illumination and silicon nitride Fresnel zone plate objective for object magnification and imaging. The microscope is capable of capturing water-window images of objects with 60 nm spatial resolution and exposure time as low as a few seconds. Details about the microscopy system as well as some examples of different applications from various fields of science, are presented and discussed.

In this work we present three experimental, compact desk-top imaging systems: SXR and EUV full field microscopes and the SXR contact microscope. The systems are based on laser-plasma EUV and SXR sources based on a double stream gas puff target. The EUV and SXR full field microscopes, operating at 13.8 nm and 2.88 nm wavelengths are capable of imaging nanostructures with a sub-50 nm spatial resolution and short (seconds) exposure times. The SXR contact microscope operates in the “water-window” spectral range and produces an imprint of the internal structure of the imaged sample in a thin layer of SXR sensitive photoresist. Applications of such desk-top EUV and SXR microscopes, mostly for biological samples (CT26 fibroblast cells and Keratinocytes) are also presented. Details about the sources, the microscopes as well as the imaging results for various objects will be presented and discussed. The development of such compact imaging systems may be important to the new research related to biological, material science and nanotechnology applications.

Microscopes operating at short wavelengths, in the extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray spectral region, require careful condenser positioning to avoid possible artifacts related to enhancing or diminishing certain spatial frequencies in the image plane. Various methods are often used to visualize the condenser illumination pattern, including direct visualization on a CCD camera; however, these are not always straightforward to use. We present and discuss a novel and convenient method to image a condenser illumination pattern upstream the sample plane, using two zone plates with matched numerical apertures. This imaging system, operating herein in the water-window spectral range in telescope configuration, allows us to change the distance between the conjugated planes, thus overcoming limitations related to the geometry of the vacuum system. This geometry, which is optimized for the highest possible spatial resolution allowed by the zone-plate objective, is not necessarily particularly good for visualization of the condenser illumination pattern. The presented method was demonstrated with a compact, gas puff target source based soft x-ray microscope, which is capable of resolving 60 nm features (half-pitch resolution), requires a few seconds exposure time, and is debris-free due to the gaseous nature of the target for soft x-ray generation. The method, presented herein, may solve mentioned vacuum system geometry limitations. Also, it can easily be extended to other systems and other wavelengths, provided a proper optic is used. Modes of operation and the results are presented and discussed.