A Laue–Bragg monolithic beam splitter for efficient X-ray 2-beam imaging

Newly emerging techniques for probing matter simultaneously by two spatially and angularly separated X-ray beams require efficient and versatile beam splitting. We present a Laue–Bragg monolithic crystal beam splitter in the form of an L-shaped monolithic Si crystal. By simultaneous Laue and Bragg diffractions the X-ray beam is split into a transmitted polychromatic and a diffracted monochromatic branch with a spatial separation of tens of millimeters. The energy spectrum of the transmitted branch can be tuned via diffraction on a second crystal re-creating a beam intersection on the sample. We propose three multi-modal imaging setups exploiting the large angular separation of the two intersecting beams provided by the proposed optics. Photon efficiency and dual-energy operation are the main assets of our scheme as compared to other existing setups. The theoretical description for an energy range between 10 keV and 30 keV was developed.