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10keV至100keV范围内高光子能量的X射线聚焦设备，这是成像、显微断层成像以及以目前无法获得的光谱范围和分辨率对材料进行元素和结构分析所必需的。它们的主要用途是高端同步辐射设施，以及专业工业和研究环境中具有X射线管源的X射线显微镜。它们构成了一类特殊的高价值耗材，功能寿命约为2.5年，能够满足目前价值约100万美元的低性能和中等性能衍射聚焦设备的全球细分市场，如果将开发出前所未有的性能设备，则可达到400万美元以上。这种聚焦装置的出现将加强对纳米级物质结构的科学理解，以及结构和功能的相互作用，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的工艺相结合。它包括在批量制造的圆柱形硅前驱体上沉积原子层，这些前驱体具有低和高吸收和折射率材料的序列，根据菲涅尔区规则，层厚度从几纳米到微米变化，然后抛光晶片，形成嵌入聚焦装置的膜。在一个晶片上可以生产数百块波带片，最大限度地降低了每个器件的加工成本。其次，该方法可扩展到沉积两个以上材料层的序列，这使得能够制造阶梯状折射率？具有单焦点和终极衍射效率的器件。第一阶段将通过有效评估个别关键工艺的能力来解决这些问题，并将证明制造的可行性，而第二阶段将处理功能器件所需的具有长时间原子层沉积工艺的原型的制造和测试。

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.