Scanning Transmission X-ray Microscopy (STXM)

The optics we fabricate, are often aimed towards the X-ray applications. What better way to test your optics than the state-of-the-art STXM MAXYMUS (Fig. 7) that our colleagues from X-ray Microscopy working group (AG Weigand) operate in synchrotron radiation facility BESSY II in Berlin. The MAXYMUS operates in the soft X-ray energy range from 200 to 2000 eV and provides a flexible testing platform for X-ray optics. A half-pitch resolution of down to 15 nm in direct imaging can be achieved. As shown in the schematic here, basically STXM operates as an X-ray lens focuses the incoming light on to a sample, which is raster scanned while total transmitted light is collected and registered via an APD. An order sorting aperture ensures the filtering of undesired diffraction orders. We use MAXYMUS mostly for testing the performance parameters of our optics such as the resolution and diffraction efficiency.

Fig7: Schematic view of the MAXYMUS located at BESSY II facility in Berlin.