Kazuto Yamauchi

Wave-optical assessment of alignment tolerances in nano-focusing with ellipsoidal mirror

High-precision ellipsoidal mirrors, which can efficiently focus X-rays to the nanometer dimension with a mirror, have not been realized because of the difficulties in the fabrication process. The purpose of our study was to develop nano-focusing ellipsoidal mirrors in the hard X-ray region. We developed a wave-optical focusing simulator for investigating alignment tolerances in nano-focusing with a designed ellipsoidal mirror, which produce a diffraction-limited focus size of 30 × 35 nm2 in full width at half maximum at an X-ray energy of 7 keV. The simulator can calculate focusing intensity distributions around the focal point under conditions of misalignment. The wave-optical simulator enabled the calculation of interference intensity distributions, which cannot be predicted by the conventional ray-trace method. The alignment conditions with a focal length error of ≲ ±10 µm, incident angle error of ≲ ±0.5 µrad, and in-plane rotation angle error of ≲ ±0.25 µrad must be satisfied for nano-focusing.

Pit Formation, Patterning and Flattening of Ge Surfaces in O2-Containing Water by Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching

Metal-assisted chemical etching is a novel method of etching a Ge surface in contact with a noble metal in water. Its basic mechanism involves the catalytic activity of metals to reduce dissolved O2 molecules in water, which accompanies the formation of a soluble oxide (GeO2) on the Ge surface around the metal. Here, we apply this electroless etching to the pit formation, nanoscale patterning and surface flattening of Ge. The fundamental etching properties for these three processes are also presented.

X-ray microfocusing with off-axis ellipsoidal mirror

High-precision ellipsoidal mirrors for two-dimensionally focusing X-rays to nanometer sizes have not been realized because of technical problems in their fabrication processes. The objective of the present study is to develop fabrication techniques for ellipsoidal focusing mirrors in the hard-X-ray region. We design an off-axis ellipsoidal mirror for use under total reflection conditions up to the X-ray energy of 8 keV. We fabricate an ellipsoidal mirror with a surface roughness of 0.3 nm RMS (root-mean-square) and a surface figure error height of 3.0 nm RMS by utilizing a surface profiler and surface finishing method developed by us. The focusing properties of the mirror are evaluated at the BL29XUL beamline in SPring-8. A focusing beam size of 270 nm × 360 nm FWHM (full width at half maximum) at an X-ray energy of 7 keV is observed with the use of the knife-edge scanning method. We expect to apply the developed fabrication techniques to construct ellipsoidal nanofocusing mirrors.