Three-dimensional soft X-ray imaging of a thick specimen using an ellipsoidal mirror and multi-slice approach

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K20103
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 80040:Quantum beam science-related
• Research Institution: Hokkaido University
• Principal Investigator: Suzuki Akihiro 北海道大学, 電子科学研究所, 准教授 (20781850)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: タイコグラフィ / 回転体ミラー / 軟X線 / 磁気イメージング

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We numerically simulated the correlation between the numerical aperture (NA) of an ellipsoidal mirror used in the illumination optics and the spatial resolution of the reconstructed images in the ptychographic geometry. The results showed that the spatial resolution improves as the NA increases for the identical incident photons. Furthermore, we carried out ptychographic measurements of magnetic thin films at SPring-8 using a large-numerical-aperture ellipsoidal mirror as the illumination optics. By applying the phasing method to the measured dataset (approximately 2,000 diffraction patterns), we could visualize magnetic nanodomain structures, which were not visible in the simple transmission image.

Free Research Field

X線イメージング

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

磁気材料を高空間分解能で観察できる本計測手法は、通信機器の省消費電力化、高速化などへの貢献が期待されるスピントロニクスデバイス開発につながる。また、本手法は磁気材料のみがターゲットではなく、同じシステムで、環境化学や宇宙科学と関連した酸化物・窒化物ナノ粒子の元素識別観察も可能である。X線と回転体ミラーの特長を活かして、現状の顕微鏡技術よりも優れた空間分解能で試料内部の磁気・化学状態を非破壊観察できるようになれば、様々な分野で新しい知見をもたらす。