Focusing of soft X-ray radiation and characterization of the beam profile enabling X-ray emission spectrometry at nanolayered specimens

For the analysis and speciation of nanoscaled materials, an efficient detection in high-resolution X-ray emission spectrometry is needed. Therefore, the focusing of monochromatized soft X-ray undulator radiation with a single bounce monocapillary down to micrometer range is reported. For a photon energy of 1060 eV, spot sizes of 10 μm–15 μm retaining 34% of the incident beam radiant power could be obtained. The beam profile was characterized by two complementary methods, the knife-edge method and the so-called wire method, where a thin wire is scanned through the focused beam. With the focused beam, the efficiency of the wavelength-dispersive spectrometer could be significantly increased, which enables the X-ray emission spectrometry analysis of nanoscaled materials.