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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 46: Magnetic Imaging Techniques II

MA 46.4: Talk

Thursday, March 12, 2026, 10:15–10:30, POT/0361

Shaken, not stirred: Using vibrations for sub-10nm resolution scanning X-ray microscopy imaging — •Simone Finizio, Benjamin Watts, Benedikt Rösner, and Jörg Raabe — Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen PSI, Switzerland

In order to fully exploit the significantly higher coherent photon flux offered by the novel diffraction-limited light sources for high-resolution imaging, scanning microscopy techniques need to tackle imaging overheads and the unavoidable vibrations at the nanometric scales, both hindering the achievement of sub-10nm resolutions in routine conditions.

In most scanning microscopy endstations, significant effort and expense is dedicated to fight these unavoidable vibrations. In this work, we propose to stop fighting vibrations, and instead harness their potential to provide a uniform sampling at the nanoscale. This is achieved by relaxing the positioning precision requirements and sampling the position of the sample with a fast (10 kHz) clock, significantly above the mechanical eigenfrequencies of the sample assembly. An image is then created by binning the recorded positions and photon counts according to a user-defined pixel size. With this method, the routine imaging of sub-10nm features could be demonstrated.

Keywords: STXM; High-resolution imaging; X-ray microscopy