REALIZATION OF AN ASYMMETRIC MULTILAYER X-RAY MIRROR, S.M. Owens, R.D. Deslattes and J. Pedulla, pp. 218-222

Multilayer x-ray optics provide a useful alternative to perfect crystal optics when used as beam conditioners for hard x-rays (~8 keV) in applications that do not require high energy and/or angular resolution. Perfect crystal optics, however, can be cut in such a way that allows one to partially engineer the input and output beam widths and divergence to desired values. Such optics, termed asymmetrically cut crystals, are often used to compress or expand an x-ray beam in one dimension. This trait makes crystal optics far more flexible and valuable in x-ray analysis than they would be otherwise. Due to their layered nature, standard multilayer optics are symmetric and thus, in some ways are less flexible than perfect crystal optics. By depositing a multilayer structure on a triangularly faceted substrate, such as a blazed diffraction grating or an orientationdependent etched silicon substrate, the multilayer takes on compression/expansion properties similar to those of asymmetrically cut crystal optics and will add a previously unknown level of flexibility to their design and use.