The application of resonantly enhanced X-ray standing waves in fluorescence and waveguide experiments

This report discusses standing X-ray waves in thin films and their application for the determination of the position of a thin marker layer in a 100-nm-thick carbon layer. The position of 0.3–0.5-nm-thick titanium layers could be determined with an accuracy of 1% of the total film thickness. As the standing X-ray wave is a standing wave only in the direction parallel to the surface normal, it is travelling in the direction parallel to the surface. In the present study the properties of such a waveguided beam are studied when the beam exits from the waveguide end. Such a beam is of particular interest as it has dimensions of the order of 100–200 nm in one direction. Data will be presented for the shape of the beam, the energy tunability and the obtainable gain. The beam is found to be highly coherent and divergent. With the latter properties, an interesting application in microdiffraction experiments will be discussed in more detail. In a magnifying projection scheme the strain development in semiconductor crystalline material under oxidised lines of submicron width size could be studied with submicron lateral resolution and high sensitivity.