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X-ray optics

Making hard light sharper

Nature volume 404, pages 345–347 (2000)Cite this article

Light provides us with an incredible range of tools for probing and manipulating nature. We use it to catch and cool atoms to near absolute zero1, and to heat matter to the extreme conditions found in supernovae2. The electromagnetic spectrum (light in the most general sense) extends from longer radio wavelengths through the infrared and visible, and into the shorter ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma-ray range. Over some of this range we have ways of controlling and harnessing light by using lenses to focus it, mirrors to change its direction and prisms or gratings to split it into its constituent wavelengths. But the tools that we take for granted in the visible region of the spectrum (where the wave length of light is about 5×10−7 m) become progressively harder to build as we move to shorter and shorter wavelengths.

In the ‘hard’ X-ray range, where the wavelength of light might be 5,000 times smaller than for visible light, the construction of something as simple as a mirror requires a technical tour de force. On page 371 of this issue, Liss et al.3 describe a device rather more ambitious than a single mirror. They have built a cavity for hard X-rays from two thin plates of crystalline silicon, and used this to trap and control short pulses of X-rays from a synchrotron. This may well lead to the development of very narrow band filters for hard X-rays.

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Figure 1: Visible and X-ray optics.
Figure 2: In the device created by Liss et al.3, a short-duration (1 × 10−10 second) ‘hard’ X-ray pulse from a synchrotron is injected into a cavity formed from a single silicon crystal.

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  1. Department of Physics, Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London, SW7 1BQ, UK

    Roland Smith

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  1. Roland Smith
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Correspondence to Roland Smith.

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Smith, R. Making hard light sharper. Nature 404, 345–347 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35006194

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