We have been developing a transmission soft x-ray microscope utilizing Wolter mirrors at a soft x-ray beamline of SACLA. We upgraded the soft x-ray microscope to enable simultaneous visible light imaging and soft x-ray imaging. To achieve this, we divided the annular apertures of the condenser and objective Wolter mirrors into two sections, allowing for soft x-ray imaging with one part and visible light imaging with the other. Our microscopy allows imaging cells with fluorescent labels by visible light while observing them with water window soft x-rays, which is useful for studying living cells.
Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) is a widely used spectroscopic technique for analyzing elementary excitations. However, this process is inefficient and thus difficult to apply to imaging. We propose to stimulate the RIXS (SRIXS) process using a soft x-ray free-electron laser (SXFEL), increasing the photon yield by up to 6 orders of magnitude [Higley, Commun. Phys. 5 83 (2022)]. By designing a new achromatic full-field twin Wolter mirror microscope and multi-aperture grating, it should become possible to measure SRIXS by imaging the full x-ray spectrum at many spatial points simultaneously.
To test the feasibility of SRIXS imaging, we simulate the SRIXS signal strength with a three-level Maxwell-Bloch model. Using the parameters of the SACLA BL1 SXFEL, we show that SRIXS imaging is feasible, requiring a peak intensity of 1016 W/cm2 and sub-micron focus size, readily achievable with the proposed microscope.
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