Synchrotron Optical Metrology for Nanofocusing
and Coherence Preservation

Research in at-wavelength testing and characterization of short-wavelength optics.

Research with x-ray, soft x-ray, and EUV wavelengths opens doors to exploration at the nanoscale. Modern synchrotron light sources, which are incredibly bright at these wavelengths, unlock new possibilities for investigations of materials properties that have never been possible before. Despite remarkable advances in the source technologies, beamline optics have not kept pace.

Reasonable estimates place the brightness losses from aberrated or misaligned focusing optics anywhere from 10-100x, varying from beamline to beamline. The primary reason for the significant losses is the great challenge of performing surface metrology and in situ alignment with nano-scale tolerances. Aside from scattering, the light is there, it's just not being focused properly. 21st century beamlines are still using 20th century alignment techniques, where the feedback is an order of magnitude less sensitive than necessary.

Our goal is to leverage existing successful techniques from other fields, and to develop new ideas into working optical metrology and alignment methods surpassing the state of the art. Accurate metrology is the cornerstone of active-focusing beamline optics, an idea already being pursued by other leading groups.

The following slides outline the key problems and strategies