500-nm-resolution 10 keV X-ray imaging transmission microscope with tantalum phase zone plates

An imaging transmission hard X-ray microscope has been constructed at the H yogo-BL (BL24XU) of SPring-8. It makes use of X-ray phase zone plates (PZP' s) made of tantalum as its condenser and objective lenses. The objective PZ P has an outermost zone width of 250 nm, which corresponds to the theoretic ally expected spatial resolution of 300 nm. An experiment was performed at the photon energy of 10keV to check the performance of the microscope. Sinc e a 250nm line-and-space pattern was clearly resolved, we concluded that th e microscope attained a spatial resolution limit better than 500 nm. A few samples were also examined and the feasibility of the microscope was succes sfully demonstrated.