A compact soft X-ray spectrograph combining high efficiency and resolution

Abstract

A compact and light weight soft X-ray spectrograph covering 5-35 nm and employing a toroidal mirror and a variable line space reflection grating has been newly developed. Particular emphasis has been placed on achieving a large collection solid angle (1.9 × 10-3 sr) and a high efficiency of the components in order to enable Thomson Scattering plasma diagnostics which has a small total cross section (6.65 × 10-25 cm2). The instrument achieves a signal-to-noise ratio of 5 with a 13.5 nm source which isotropically emits 2.5 × 105 photons. A resolution λ/Δλ = 330 was measured at 21 nm and the dispersion was calibrated. The instrument is housed inside a DN 100 CF ultra high vacuum manipulator (43 × 46 × 47 cm3) which allows positioning relative to the source within ±5 mm and ±50 mm in X,Y and Z direction, respectively. It can be used with or without entrance pinhole and is equipped with a motorized grating, a filter wheel with five filters, and a shutter. Altogether, these features make the spectrograph a versatile instrument which can be employed in a variety of physics applications such as line and bremsstrahlung spectroscopy or Thomson scattering. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd and SISSA.