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Ptychographic X-ray Speckle Tracking with Multi Layer Laue Lens Systems

The ever-increasing brightness of synchrotron radiation sources demands improved x-ray optics to utilise their capability for imaging and probing biological cells, nano-devices, and functional matter on the nanometre scale with chemical sensitivity. Hard x-rays are ideal for high-resolution imaging and spectroscopic applications due to their short wavelength, high penetrating power, and chemical sensitivity. The penetrating power that makes x-rays useful for imaging also makes focusing them technologically challenging. Recent developments in layer deposition techniques that have enabled the fabrication of a series of highly focusing x-ray lenses, known as wedged multi layer Laue lenses. Improvements to the lens design and fabrication technique demands an accurate, robust, in-situ and at-wavelength characterisation method. To this end, we have developed a modified form of the speckle-tracking wavefront metrology method, the ptychographic x-ray speckle tracking method, which is capable of operating with highly divergent wavefields. A useful by-product of this method, is that it also provides high-resolution and aberration-free projection images of extended specimens. We report on three separate experiments using this method, where we have resolved ray path angles to within 4 nano-radians with an imaging resolution of 45nm (full-period). This method does not require a high degree of coherence, making it suitable for lab based x-ray sources. Likewise it is robust to errors in the registered sample positions making it suitable for x-ray free-electron laser facilities, where beam pointing fluctuations can be problematic for wavefront metrology.