Soft X-Ray Microscopy at HZB: Zone Plate Development and Imaging Using the Third Order of Diffraction.

The Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) operates a transmission x-ray microscope (TXM) in the soft x-ray photon energy range with an energy resolution up to E/ΔE = 104 [1]. An approach to achieve ultrahigh spatial resolution with conventional, standard zone plate optics is to employ higher orders of diffraction of the zone plate objective [2]. In this paper, we demonstrate that 11-nm lines and spaces of a multilayer test structure are clearly resolved by the x-ray microscope using the third order of diffraction of a zone plate objective with 20-nm outermost zone width. The disadvantage of high-order imaging is an about one order of magnitude lower diffraction efficiency of the used zone plates employed in the third order compared to the first order of diffraction. In addition, the measured background signal in the TXM images is no longer negligible. Therefore, we worked on the fabrication of zone plates with sub-20-nm outermost zone width to increase the spatial resolution in the first order of diffraction. A new high-resolution 100-keV e-beam lithography system from VISTEC, which was recently installed at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, makes these developments possible. Initial results on zone plates with an outermost zone width down to 15 nm exposed with the new e-beam system are presented. Furthermore, the contrast transfer function of the transmission x-ray microscope operating in partial coherence mode is measured by using the first and third diffraction order of the zone plate objective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]