Laboratory-size three-dimensional water-window X-ray microscope with Wolter type i mirror optics

Abstract

We constructed a laboratory-size three-dimensional water-window X-ray microscope that combines wide-field transmission X-ray microscopy with tomographic reconstruction techniques. It consists of an electron-impact X-ray source emitting oxygen Kα X-rays, Wolter type I grazing incidence mirror optics, and a back-illuminated CCD for X-ray imaging. A spatial resolution limit better than 1.0 line pairs per micrometer was obtained for two-dimensional transmission images, and 1-μm-scale three-dimensional fine structures were resolved.