X-ray point and line-projection microscopy and diffraction

A theoretical framework is presented to treat both imaging and diffraction experiments performed with point-focus and line-focus Xray sources, with particular emphasis on two-dimensional and planar X-ray waveguides. In particular, point-projection and line-projection microscopy has been approached within the Huygens-Fresnel formalism; point-projection and line-projection diffraction, such as spatially-resolved Bragg/Laue diffraction of crystalline samples in a regime of dynamical scattering, has been treated both by means of the Huygens-Fresnel formalism and of the Takagi-Taupin dynamical theory. Both in point- and line- projection geometry, simply rotating the investigated crystalline samples, it is possible to switch from Fresnel self-imaging to Bragg/Laue diffraction conditions. This means to image, within the same experiment, either morphological features, with a sub-micrometric resolution, out of the exact diffraction condition, or the structure order on an atomic scale if placing the sample in diffraction. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.