Fabrication of X-ray Mirror for Hard X-ray Diffraction Limited Nanofocusing.

We designed, fabricated and evaluated a total-reflection mirror having a designed focal size of 28 nm at 15keV. Line-focus tests on the fabricated mirror were carried out at the 1-km-long beamline (BL29XUL) of SPring-8. Nearly diffraction-limited performance with a full width at half maximum spot size of 30 nm was realized at 15 keV. We are planning to fabricate multilayer-coated mirror for realizing sub-10-nm focusing in hard x-ray region. We suggest a novel method of at-wavelength metrology. Wave-front error on the mirror surface can be estimated by a phase retrieval method using the intensity profile around the focal point. By correcting the estimated wave-front errors, sub-10-nm focusing is potentially feasible. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]