X-ray Lenses Fabricated by LIGA Technology.

X-ray refractive optical lens systems have been successfully elaborated, designed, fabricated at the Institute for Microstructure Technology at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (Germany) using LIGA technology in recent years. The lenses are structured in a SU-8 polymer. The capability of the LIGA technique to create an arbitrary profile of the focusing microstructures allow the fabrication of lenses with different curvature radius of parabolic geometry, minimized absorption and a large depth of focus. Also a set of planar lens systems on one substrate can be realized with 17 lenses providing identical focal distances for different X-ray energies from 2 to over 100 keV. Nickel lenses fabricated by electroforming using polymer templates can be applied for energies larger than 80 keV. The parabolic crossed lenses are used for 2D nano focusing of monochromatic beams. The quasi-parabolic crossed lenses with a submicron focus and a focus depth of the centimetre range can be used as an achromatic system. Mosaic truncated parabolic lenses with a focusing aperture up to 1 mm are made to increase the X-ray intensity in the focused spot. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]