Nanoscale spectroscopy with polarized X-rays by NEXAFS-TXM

Peter Guttmann (1) , Carla Bittencourt (2) , Stefan Rehbein , Polona Umek , Xiaoxing Ke (3) , Gustaaf van Tendeloo (4) , Christopher Ewels (5) , Gerd Schneider

1 HZB - BESSY II
2 LCIA - LCIA
3 EMAT - Electron Microscopy for Materials Science
4 EMAT, University of Antwerp
5 IMN - Institut des Matériaux Jean Rouxel

Near-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (NEXAFS)1 is an essential analytical tool in material science. Combining NEXAFS with scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) adds spatial resolution and the possibility to study individual nanostructures2, 3. Here, we describe a full-field transmission X-ray microscope (TXM) that generates high-resolution, large-area NEXAFS data with a collection rate two orders of magnitude faster than is possible with STXM. The TXM optical design combines a spectral resolution of E/ΔE = 1 × 104 with a spatial resolution of 25 nm in a field of view of 15-20 µm and a data acquisition time of ~1 s. As an example, we present image stacks and polarization-dependent NEXAFS spectra from individual anisotropic sodium and protonated titanate nanoribbons. Our NEXAFS-TXM technique has the advantage that one image stack visualizes a large number of nanostructures and therefore already contains statistical information. This new high-resolution NEXAFS-TXM technique opens the way to advanced nanoscale science studies.

Mots clés: Imaging and sensing; Spectroscopy; Nanophotonics; X-rays

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Peter Guttmann, Carla Bittencourt, Stefan Rehbein, Polona Umek, Xiaoxing Ke, et al.. Nanoscale spectroscopy with polarized X-rays by NEXAFS-TXM. Nature Photonics, 2012, 6 (1), pp.25. ⟨10.1038/NPHOTON.2011.268⟩. ⟨hal-00865869⟩