Controlling the properties of light is of great importance for many areas of physics, including imaging and nanolithography. But for short wavelengths, such as soft-X-ray radiation, such control over especially the phase of light has remained elusive. Now, Lars Loetgering and Stefan Witte from the Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography, together with colleagues from Germany and the USA, report on a method that enables the generation of soft-X-ray beams with controlled orbital angular momentum (OAM).
A cross-sectional images of a helical soft-X-ray beam. (Source: ARCNL)
OAM is a property of light in which the phase of a light beam rotates around the beam axis. The ARCNL team now demonstrates that, by inserting a specially designed structure into the beam path, the light can be diffracted in such a way that its OAM properties are modified. Being able to control OAM of light is an important first step; it will give researchers access to the angular structure of the soft-X-ray beam.
Loetgering and colleagues used this new method to generate helical beams of soft-X-ray radiation, in which the intensity distribution of light rotates around its axis upon propagation. They employed a special imaging approach – ptychography – to characterize the intensity and phase properties of these helical beams in great detail. Furthermore, they demonstrated the potential of these special beams for high-resolution microscopy, by using them to image a cross-section of an integrated circuit at 30 nanometer spatial resolution. (Source: ARCNL)
Link: Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography ARCNL, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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