The XM-1 soft x-ray microscope is a user-dedicated facility located at the
Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and has rece
ntly been established as a tool for high-resolution imaging of magnetic dom
ains. It is a conventional full field transmission microscope which is able
to achieve a resolution of 25 nm by using high-precision zone plates. It u
ses off-axis bend-magnet radiation to illuminate samples with elliptically
polarized light. When the illumination energy is tuned to absorption edges
of specific elements, it can be used as an element-specific probe of magnet
ism on the 25 nm scale with contrast provided by magnetic circular dichrois
m. The illumination energy can be adjusted between 250-850 eV. This allows
magnetic imaging of elements including chromium, iron and cobalt. The spect
ral resolution has been shown to be E/DeltaE = 500-700. This spectral resol
ution allows a high sensitivity so that magnetization has been imaged withi
n layers as thin as 3 mu. Since this is a photon based magnetic microscopy,
fields can be applied to the sample even during imaging without affecting
the spatial resolution. The current system can apply in-plane or out-of-pla
ne fields of a few kOe.