| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
HONDA Toshio Chiba University, Faculty of Engineering, Prof., 工学部, 教授 (10016503)
ITO Atsushi Tokai Univ., School of Engineering, Assoc.Prof., 工学部, 助教授 (80193473)
YADA Keiji Aomori Public College, Faculty of Economics, Professor, 経営経済学部, 教授 (60006129)
KOIKE Masato Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, Advanced Photon Research Center, Principal Scientist, 光量子科学研究センター, 主任研究員
YOSHIMURA Hideyuki Meiji University, School of Science and Engineering, Professor, 理工学部, 教授 (70281441)
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| Research Abstract |
Soft X-ray projection microscopy using synchrotron radiation as a light source has been developed. The system consists of a Fresnel zone plate with an outermost zone width of 80nm, a pinhole (0.5-20μmφ), specimens on a specimen holder, and a back-illuminated CCD camera. In some experiments, a pre-pinhole (10-100μmφ) was placed in the upper stream of the zone plate to give coherent illumination to it. The alignment of the pinhole was achieved with the aid of piezo-driven stages with ten-nanometer precision. Monochromatic soft X-rays of the wavelengths of 1.5nm, 2.4nm and 3.6nm were obtained from the beamline BL-12A and BL-11A at the Photon Factory, Tsukuba, Japan. The highest spatial resolution of 0.2-0.3μm was attained with the combination of a 10μmφ prepinhole and a 1μmφ pinhole, judging from the resolution of line spacing on a test pattern consisting of lines and spaces with defined widths. With this system, we obtained images of EM-grids, dried mammalian cells, and dried human chromosomes. Granular structure in mammalian cells and fine structure in chromosomes were distinguished. In parallel with the image acquisition, computational studies were conducted 1) to evaluate optical properties of the combination of a zone plate and a pinhole, and 2) to develop the method for the improvement of the quality of images recovered from the experimentally obtained images distorted by the Fresnel diffraction. Further improvements of the system in 1) the improvement of the resolution, 2) the development for imaging biological specimens in wet environment and 3) the improvement of the quality of images by a computer processing, and its medical/biological application remained to be studied.
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