Crystallography Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Crystallography, including details on x-ray crystals, techniques, analyses, structures.

High numerical aperture tabletop soft x-ray diffraction microscopy with 70-nm resolution.

Sandberg RL, Song C, Wachulak PW, Raymondson DA, Paul A, Amirbekian B, Lee E, Sakdinawat AE, La-O-Vorakiat C, Marconi MC, Menoni CS, Murnane MM, Rocca JJ, Kapteyn HC, Miao J

Department of Physics and JILA, University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology, 440 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0440, USA.

Light microscopy has greatly advanced our understanding of nature. The achievable resolution, however, is limited by optical wavelengths to approximately 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 1.5lambda. 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.

Published 9 January 2008 in Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 105(1): 24-7.
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