Miniaturized beamsplitters realized by X-ray waveguides

This paper reports on the fabrication and characterization of X-ray waveguide beamsplitters. The waveguide channels were manufactured by electron-beam lithography, reactive ion etching and wafer bonding techniques, with an empty (air) channel forming the guiding layer and silicon the cladding material. A focused synchrotron beam is efficiently coupled into the input channel. The beam is guided and split into two channels with a controlled (and tunable) distance at the exit of the waveguide chip. After free-space propagation and diffraction broadening, the two beams interfere and form a double-slit interference pattern in the far-field. From the recorded far-field, the near-field was reconstructed by a phase retrieval algorithm (error reduction), which was found to be extremely reliable for the two-channel setting. By numerical propagation methods, the reconstructed field was then propagated along the optical axis, to investigate the formation of the interference pattern from the two overlapping beams. Interestingly, phase vortices were observed and analysed.