Fabrication of ultrathin Bragg beam splitter by plasma chemical vaporization machining

A novel fabrication process was proposed to produce high-quality Bragg beam splitters for hard X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs), which should consist of thin, bend-free, and robust Bragg-case crystals without any defects. A combination of a mechanical process and plasma chemical vaporization machining was employed. High crystalline perfection of the fabricated Si(110) crystal was verified with X-ray topography and rocking curve measurements. In addition, the thickness was evaluated to be 4.4 mu m from the fringe period of the measured rocking curve. The crystal can be employed in Bragg beam splitters using the (220) Bragg reflection for X-ray pump-X-ray probe experiments with XFEL sources.