Soft X-ray multilayer beam splitters.

A semitransparent Mo/Si multilayer beam splitter with a completely self-standing active area (10 x 10 mm) and a flatness of 1.1 nm (r.m.s.) was fabricated. The influence of the roughness of the membrane substrate on the reflectivity of a beam splitter was investigated for different materials and deposition schemes. Precise control of multilayer stress to give a slightly tensile state not only enables the fabrication of a large and flat reflection surface, but also makes it possible to etch away the supporting membrane and obtain a completely self-standing structure. The performance evaluation using synchrotron radiation revealed that the fabricated beam splitter works as a one-to-one beam splitter whose reflectivity and transmittance are both 27% (s-polarization, 45 degrees, lambda = 13.4 nm).