Nanostructured diffractive optical devices for soft X-ray microscopes

The new transmission X-ray microscope (TXM) installed at the BESSY II electron storage ring uses an off-axis transmission zone plate (OTZ) as diffractive and focusing element of the condenser-monochromator setup. A high resolution micro-zone plate (MZP) forms a magnified image on a CCD-detector. Both, the OTZ with an active area of up to 24 mm2 and the MZP with zone widths as small as 25 nm are generated by a process including electron beam lithography (EBL), dry etching and subsequent electroplating of nickel on top of silicon membrane substrates with about 100–150 nm thickness. The combination of a larger zone width and the usage of nickel zone structures allows to increase the diffraction efficiency of the condenser element at least by a factor of 3 compared to the earlier used KZP7 condenser zone plate in the TXM at BESSY I. Groove diffraction efficiencies of 21.6% and 14.7% were measured for MZP objectives with 40 and 25 nm outermost zone width, respectively.