A combined Kirkpatrick-Baez mirror and multilayer lens for sub-10 nm x-ray focusing

We have used a combined optical system of a high gain elliptic Kirkpatrick-Baez mirror system (KB) and a multilayer Laue lens (MLL) positioned in the focal plane of the KB for hard x-rays nano-focusing. The two-step focusing scheme is based on a high acceptance and high gain elliptical mirror with moderate focal length and a MLL with ultra-short focal length. Importantly, fabrication constraints, i.e. in mirror polishing and bending, as well as MLL deposition can be significantly relaxed, since (a) the mirror focus in the range of 200-500 nm is sufficient, and (b) the number of layers of the MLL can be correspondingly small. First demonstrations of this setup at the coherence beamline of the PETRA III storage ring yield a highly divergent far-field diffraction pattern, from which the autocorrelation function of the near-field intensity distribution was obtained. The results show that the approach is well suited to reach smallest spot sizes in the sub-10nm range at high flux. Copyright 2012 Author(s). This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3698119]