High numerical aperture tabletop soft x-ray diffraction microscopy with 70-nm resolution
Open Access
- 8 January 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 105 (1), 24-27
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0710761105
Abstract
Light microscopy has greatly advanced our understanding of nature. The achievable resolution, however, is limited by optical wavelengths to ≈200 nm. By using imaging and labeling technologies, resolutions beyond the diffraction limit can be achieved for specialized specimens with techniques such as near-field scanning optical microscopy, stimulated emission depletion microscopy, and photoactivated localization microscopy. Here, we report a versatile soft x-ray diffraction microscope with 70- to 90-nm resolution by using two different tabletop coherent soft x-ray sources—a soft x-ray laser and a high-harmonic source. We also use field curvature correction that allows high numerical aperture imaging and near-diffraction-limited resolution of 1.5λ. A tabletop soft x-ray diffraction microscope should find broad applications in biology, nanoscience, and materials science because of its simple optical design, high resolution, large depth of field, 3D imaging capability, scalability to shorter wavelengths, and ultrafast temporal resolution.Keywords
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