High efficiency positive and negative phase zone plates

We design a new kind of phase zone plates (PZPs) to improve the diffraction efficiency of soft x ray zone plates (ZPs). The design replaces blank parts of PZPs with metals of negative phase shift at the working energy, which is called as the positive and negative PZPs (PNPZPs). According to the calculation, PNPZPs have a higher maximum efficiency than conventional ZPs with the same zone width. With the help of a negative phase coefficient, it is much easier to achieve a pi phase shift in one period, resulting in a smaller zone height. This design can help fabricate finer PZPs to achieve a better image resolution.