Interferometer-controlled soft X-ray scanning photoemission microscope at SOLEIL

TL;DR

The paper presents the design, implementation, and commissioning of ANTARES, a soft X-ray scanning photoemission microscope with interferometer control for precise FZP positioning, enabling high-resolution nano-ARPES and absorption experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interferometer control system for the ANTARES microscope, enhancing positional accuracy and stability during experiments.

Findings

Achieved effective sample position feedback during static nano-ARPES measurements.

Maintained long-term stability of FZP position during X-ray absorption experiments.

Demonstrated diffraction-limited resolution of several tens of nanometers.

Abstract

ANTARES beamline (BL), a new soft X-ray scanning photoemission microscope located at the SOLEIL synchrotron storage ring has been recently designed, built and commissioned. The implemented interferometer control allows the accurate measurement of the transverse position of the Fresnel zone plate (FZP) relative to the sample. An effective sample position feedback has been achieved during experiments in static mode, with a fixed FZP position required to perform nano Angle-Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy (Nano-ARPES) measurements. Likewise, long-term stability has been attained for the FZP position relative to the sample during the translation of the FZP when performing typical X-ray absorption experiments around the absorption edges of light elements. Moreover, a fully automatic feedback digital control of the interferometric system provides extremely low orthogonal distortion of the recorded two-dimensional images. The microscope is diffraction limited with the resolution set to several tens of nanometers by the quality of the zone plates. Details on the design of the interferometric system and a brief description of the first commissioning results are presented here.