SBIR Phase I: X-Ray Focusing Device for 20-100 keV Photon Energies

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目的目标是制造高光子能量的x射线聚焦设备，范围从10 keV到100 keV，这是成像，显微断层扫描，以及在光谱范围和分辨率上对材料进行元素和结构分析所必需的。它们的主要用途是在高端同步辐射设施和x射线显微镜与x射线管源在专门的工业和研究环境。它们形成了一类特殊的高价值耗材，其功能寿命约为2.5年，能够解决目前低性能和平均性能衍射聚焦设备的全球细分市场价值约为100万美元，如果开发出前所未有的性能设备，将超过400万美元。这种聚焦装置的可用性将增强对纳米尺度物质结构的科学理解，以及结构和功能之间的相互作用，其应用范围从药物开发到材料科学、纳米电子学、生物科学、法医学、电池和能源研究、调查陆地土壤或宇宙尘埃、超快速化学反应动力学、先进催化剂等。这个项目的智力价值是双重的。首先，创新的制造方法是自上而下和自下而上加工的结合。它包括原子层沉积在批量制造的低和高吸收和折射率材料序列的圆柱形硅前驱体上，根据菲涅耳区规则，层厚度从几纳米到微米不等，然后抛光晶圆以形成嵌入聚焦装置的膜。在一片晶圆上可以生产数百个带片，最大限度地降低了每个设备的加工成本。其次，该方法可扩展到沉积两层以上材料层的序列，从而能够制造阶梯渐变指数kinoform。具有单焦点和极限衍射效率的器件。第一阶段将通过有效评估单个关键工艺的能力来解决这些问题，并将证明制造的可行性，而第二阶段将通过长期的原子层沉积工艺来处理原型的制造和测试，这是功能器件所必需的。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project targets the fabrication of X-ray focusing devices for high photon energies in the range from 10 keV to 100 keV, necessary for imaging, microtomography, and elemental and structural analyses of materials in spectral ranges and at resolutions unavailable today. Their primary use is in high-end synchrotron radiation facilities and in X-ray microscopes with X-ray tubes sources in specialized industrial and research environments. They form a special class of high-value consumables, with a functional life time of ~2.5 years, with capabilities to address the global market segment worth about $1M today for low and average performance diffractive focusing devices, to more than $4M, if the unprecedented performance devices will be developed. Availability of such focusing devices will enhance the scientific understanding of structure of matter at the nano-scale and the interplay of structure and functionality for applications ranging from drugs development to materials science, nano-electronics, biosciences, forensics, battery and energy research, investigating terrestrial soils or cosmic dust, the kinetics of ultra-fast chemical reactions, advanced catalysts, and others. The intellectual merit of this project is twofold. First, the innovative method of fabrication is a combination of top-down and bottom-up processing. It includes the atomic layer deposition onto batch-fabricated cylindrical silicon precursors of sequences of low and high absorption and refractive index materials, with well-controlled layer thicknesses varying from few nm to micrometers according to the Fresnel zone rules, followed by polishing the wafer to form membranes with focusing devices embedded into them. Hundreds of zone plates can be produced on one wafer, minimizing the processing costs per device. Second, the method is extendable towards depositing sequences of more-than-two material layers, which enables the fabrication of step-wise graded index kinoforms ? devices with single foci and of ultimate diffraction efficiency. Phase I will address these issues by effectively assessing the capabilities for individual key processes and will prove the fabrication feasibility, while Phase II will deal with the fabrication and testing of prototypes with long runs of atomic layer deposition processes, as necessary for functional devices.