Refraction and ultra‐small‐angle scattering of X‐rays in a single‐crystal diamond compound refractive lens

In this work a double‐crystal setup is employed to study compound refractive lenses made of single‐crystal diamond. The point spread function of the lens is calculated taking into account the lens transmission, the wavefront aberrations, and the ultra‐small‐angle broadening of the X‐ray beam. It is shown that, similarly to the wavefront aberrations, the ultra‐small‐angle scattering effects can significantly reduce the intensity gain and increase the focal spot size. The suggested approach can be particularly useful for the characterization of refractive X‐ray lenses composed of many tens of unit lenses.     

Submicrometer hard X‐ray focusing using a single‐bounce ellipsoidal capillary combined with a Fresnel zone plate

A single‐bounce capillary with an ellipsoidal shape has been used for two‐step focusing in combination with a Fresnel zone plate (FZP). The FZP serves as a first microfocusing element and produces a demagnified micrometer image of the source, before the elliptical capillary makes a last final compression of the beam. With 15 keV X‐rays from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility BM5 bending magnet, the two‐step demagnification system produced a focus of about 250 nm with a gain of more than 1000. The use of an ellipsoidal capillary as a micro‐mirror under off‐axis illumination using micro‐prefocusing optics might open up new opportunities in nanofocusing developments.     

Non‐invasive measurement of X‐ray beam heating on a surrogate crystal sample

Cryocooling is a technique routinely used to mitigate the effects of secondary radiation damage on macromolecules during X‐ray data collection. Energy from the X‐ray beam absorbed by the sample raises the temperature of the sample. How large is the temperature increase and does this reduce the effectiveness of cryocooling? Sample heating by the X‐ray beam has been measured non‐invasively for the first time by means of thermal imaging. Specifically, the temperature rise of 1 mm and 2 mm glass spheres (sample surrogates) exposed to an intense synchrotron X‐ray beam and cooled in a laminar flow of nitrogen gas is experimentally measured. For the typical sample sizes, photon energies, fluxes, flux densities and exposure times used for macromolecular crystallographic data collection at third‐generation synchrotron radiation sources and with the sample accurately centered in the cryostream, the heating by the X‐ray beam is only a few degrees. This is not sufficient to raise the sample above the amorphous‐ice/crystalline‐ice transition temperature and, if the cryostream cools the sample to 100 K, not even enough to significantly enhance radiation damage from secondary effects.     

Detection of a new SRS‐promoting phonon mode and cross‐cascaded χ(3)‐nonlinear lasing in single crystals of calcite (trigonal CaCO3)

For calcite (CaCO₃), one of the pioneer crystals in nonlinear optics, new results of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) spectroscopy are presented. Among them are the discovery of a new SRS‐promoting vibration mode with ω_SRS2 ≈︁ 282 cm^‐1 and its participation, together with the main SRS mode ω_SRS1 ≈︁ 1086.5 cm^‐1, in cross‐cascaded (χ⁽³⁾ ↔ χ⁽³⁾) nonlinear‐lasing generation, as well as the observation of efficient self‐upconversion via cascaded parametric four‐wave processes of one‐micron Stokes and anti‐Stokes χ⁽³⁾‐lasing into the UV‐region of third harmonic generation. The investigations show that calcite is able to generate a χ⁽³⁾‐lasing comb of more than two octaves bandwidth. The article also gives a brief review on the discovery and study of the SRS‐effect in natural crystals (minerals), which have expanded our ability to study the photon‐phonon nonlinear‐laser interactions in crystalline materials. A short summary of information about χ⁽³⁾‐lasing properties of the triangular planar structure units in SRS‐active crystals is included.