Laboratory Full-Field Transmission X-ray Microscopy

X-ray microscopy in the water window has become a valuable imaging tool for a wide field of applications with a resolution in the nanometer regime. The emergence and the development of laboratory based transmission X-ray microscopes (LTXM) can be of great benefit to users, since LTXM provides access to a method previously limited to synchrotron facilities only. In recent years, measuring times in the laboratory have been reduced to the point, where tomography of aqueous cryofixated samples has become feasible. We report on a laboratory full-field transmission X-ray microscope based on a laser induced plasma source located at the Berlin Laboratory for innovative X-ray Technologies. A short introduction on full-field X-ray microscopy in the water window is given. We demonstrate that, with a thin disk laser-system (TDL), which provides an average power of similar to 15 W a spatial resolution of Delta x = 41 nm +/- 3 nm (half-pitch) is feasible. An image of a diatom recorded at 15 W average laser power with a magnification of 1125x captured in 5 min is presented.