Fabrication and performance of 2-D compound X-ray refractive lenses

Due to the weak refraction of X-rays in matter, a focusing or deflection of X-ray using conventional refractive optics was not feasible. However, since compound X-ray refractive lens (CXRL) with consecutive holes array was proposed, it becomes currently a noticeable issue in X-ray optics. In this paper, we report on fabrication and performance test of two types of PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) CXRLs. Firstly, one dimensional refractive X-ray lenses of parabolic and circular shape is fabricated by LIGA process. Based on the results, we conduct a fabrication of 2-D CXRLs. Here we suggest a LIGA-self align method which doesn’t need a special align equipment and is simpler method than conventional one. Through performance tests, we show experimentally that CXRLs are novel optical components for the hard X-ray range of about 8 keV and that they have possibilities to apply the X-ray optics for micro-focusing, imaging, and lithography.