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Polycapillary Focusing Optics – X-Ray

Polycapillary compared to a quarter

Polycapillary focusing optics collect a large solid angle of X rays from an X-ray source and focus  them to a spot as small as 10 µm. The X-ray flux density obtained is a few orders of magnitude higher than that obtained with a conventional pinhole collimator. The main application of these optics is micro X-ray fluorescence (µXRF) analysis, which has been widely used for thin film and plating analysis, precious metal evaluation, alloy  measurement, and monitoring of electric circuit board coatings. The optics can also be used on the detection side in applications such as confocal XRF analysis and superconducting energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometers. The use of polycapillary focusing optics will significantly enhance the detection sensitivity and allow the high performance to be achieved with low-powered X-ray tubes. Micron-sized spatial resolution makes small feature evaluation possible for electronics and precious metal applications. Polycapillary optics offer 100x-10,000x gain with output focal spot sizes as small as 10 µm.

            
Focusing Diagram

Characteristics of Polycapillary Focusing Optics:

Type Beam Focusing, Polychromatic
Useful X-ray Energy Range Typically 0.1 – 30 keV
Collection Solid Angle Up to 20 degrees
Working Distance 2.5mm 5mm 10mm 20mm 50mm 100mm
Focused beam size
(Mo K, FWHM, 17.4keV)
10um 18um 30um 45um 100um 180um
Gain (Compared to pinhole aperture
100 mm from source)
100x – 10000x