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Baronova, E. O.

Publications and source records attributed to Baronova, E. O..

Detailed diffraction imaging of x-ray optics crystals with synchrotron radiation

Rocking curve topography at the Advanced Photon Source’s beamline 1-BM measures the x-ray reflection from large (many cm 2 ) flat crystals on a sub-mm scale with microradian angular resolution. The $(01\bar{1}1)$ reflection at 8 keV is uniform across the crystal and close to theory for three thick quartz wafers well-polished with increasingly finer grit. However, the reflection is non-uniform for some ~ 0.1mmthin, bendable crystals that are made flat by optical contact with a flat substrate. Here, these thin crystals are bent to serve in certain x-ray diagnostics of plasmas, and similar non-uniformities could then occur in bent crystals as well. The same detail in x-ray reflection in bent crystals is unachievable with the existing topography setup: one way to get the desired resolution is with a standard microfocusing approach.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

On evaluating x-ray imaging crystals with synchrotron radiation

Bent crystals are central to 1-D resolved x-ray spectroscopy and two-dimensional x-ray imaging of plasmas. Nominally identical crystals may differ in their performance with x-rays even though their visible-light images are close to identical. The detailed information needed to understand those differences, viz., the crystal’s local diffraction properties over the area that contributes to the image, is averaged out in the imaging tests that ideally precede the actual crystal’s use. Here the local diffraction of spherically bent crystals made from quartz is examined in the x-ray topography setup at the x-ray optics testing beamline 1-BM at the Advanced Photon Source, with radiation obtained from a flat quartz conditioning crystal made for the purpose.

Pereira, N. R.↗

Spatial resolution of a spherical x-ray crystal spectrometer at various magnifications

A high spatial resolution of a few μm is often required for probing small-scale high-energy-density plasmas using high resolution x-ray imaging spectroscopy. This resolution can be achieved by adjusting system magnification to overcome the inherent limitation of the detector pixel size. Laboratory experiments on investigating the relation between spatial resolution and system magnification for a spherical crystal spectrometer are presented. Tungsten Lβ{sub 2} rays from a tungsten-target micro-focus x-ray tube were diffracted by a Ge 440 crystal, which was spherically bent to a radius of 223 mm, and imaged onto an x-ray CCD with 13-μm pixel size. The source-to-crystal (p) and crystal-to-detector (q) distances were varied to produce spatial magnifications (M = q/p) ranging from 2 to 10. The inferred instrumental spatial width reduces with increasing system magnification M. However, the experimental measurement at each M is larger than the theoretical value of pixel size divided by M. Future work will focus on investigating possible broadening mechanisms that limit the spatial resolution.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Spherical quartz crystals investigated with synchrotron radiation

The quality of x-ray spectra and images obtained from plasmas with spherically bent crystals depends in part on the crystal's x-ray diffraction across the entire crystal surface. We employ the energy selectivity and high intensity of synchrotron radiation to examine typical spherical crystals from alpha-quartz for their diffraction quality, in a perpendicular geometry that is particularly convenient to examine sagittal focusing. The crystal's local diffraction is not ideal: the most noticeable problems come from isolated regions that so far have failed to correlate with visible imperfections. In conclusion, excluding diffraction from such problem spots has little effect on the focus beyond a decrease in background.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Compact focusing spectrometer: Visible (1 eV) to hard x-rays (200 keV)

A low-cost spectrometer that covers a wide range of photon energies can be useful to teach spectroscopy, and for simple, rapid measurements of the photon spectrum produced by small plasma devices. The spectrometer here achieves its wide range, nominally from 1 eV to 200 keV, with a series of spherically and cylindrically bent gratings or crystals that all have the same shape and the same radius of curvature; they are complemented by matching apertures and diagnostics on the Rowland circle that serves as the circular part of the spectrometer's vacuum vessel. Spectral lines are easily identified with software that finds their positions from the dispersion of each diffractive element and the known energies of the lines.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗