ABSTRACT
Recent progress in the development of dichroic Bragg coherent diffractive imaging, a new technique for simultaneous three-dimensional imaging of strain and magnetization at the nanoscale, is reported. This progress includes the installation of a diamond X-ray phase retarder at beamline 34-ID-C of the Advanced Photon Source. The performance of the phase retarder for tuning X-ray polarization is demonstrated with temperature-dependent X-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements on a gadolinium foil in transmission and on a Gd5Si2Ge2 crystal in diffraction geometry with a partially coherent, focused X-ray beam. Feasibility tests for dichroic Bragg coherent diffractive imaging are presented. These tests include (1) using conventional Bragg coherent diffractive imaging to determine whether the phase retarder introduces aberrations using a nonmagnetic gold nanocrystal as a control sample, and (2) collecting coherent diffraction patterns of a magnetic Gd5Si2Ge2 nanocrystal with left- and right-circularly polarized X-rays. Future applications of dichroic Bragg coherent diffractive imaging for the correlation of strain and lattice defects with magnetic ordering and inhomogeneities are considered.
ABSTRACT
The Hard X-ray Nanoprobe Beamline (or Nanoprobe Beamline) is an X-ray microscopy facility incorporating diffraction, fluorescence and full-field imaging capabilities designed and operated by the Center for Nanoscale Materials and the Advanced Photon Source at Sector 26 of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. This facility was constructed to probe the nanoscale structure of biological, environmental and material sciences samples. The beamline provides intense focused X-rays to the Hard X-ray Nanoprobe (or Nanoprobe) which incorporates Fresnel zone plate optics and a precision laser sensing and control system. The beamline operates over X-ray energies from 3 to 30 keV, enabling studies of most elements in the periodic table, with a particular emphasis on imaging transition metals.
ABSTRACT
We have used coherent X-ray diffraction experiments to characterize both the 1-D and 2-D foci produced by nanofocusing Kirkpatrick-Baez (K-B) mirrors, and we find agreement. Algorithms related to ptychography were used to obtain a 3-D reconstruction of a focused hard X-ray beam waist, using data measured when the mirrors were not optimally aligned. Considerable astigmatism was evident in the reconstructed complex wavefield. Comparing the reconstructed wavefield for a single mirror with a geometrical projection of the wavefront errors expected from optical metrology data allowed us to diagnose a 40 µrad misalignment in the incident angle of the first mirror, which had occurred during the experiment. Good agreement between the reconstructed wavefront obtained from the X-ray data and off-line metrology data obtained with visible light demonstrates the usefulness of the technique as a metrology and alignment tool for nanofocusing X-ray optics.
