Nickel-germanium soft x-ray zone plates

• This article presents a fabrication process for soft x-ray zone plates in which nickel and germanium are combined to achieve high diffraction efficiency. A nickel zone plate is first fabricated on a germanium film and then used as a hardmask for a CHF3-plasma etch into the germanium. Zone plates with 50-60 nm nickel and 110-150 nm of germanium are presented. The measured diffraction efficiencies were 10%-11% at lambda=2.88 nm, which shows that high efficiency is possible even with thin nickel. Thus, the method has a potential for improving the efficiency of high-resolution zone plates for which the high-aspect-ratio structuring of nickel is difficult.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

elemental semiconductors; germanium; light diffraction; nanofabrication; nickel; semiconductor thin films; X-ray microscopy; X-ray optics; zone plates

Physics

Fysik

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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