Applications

There is a growing need to explore the detailed structural and morphological properties of heterogeneous matter below 100 nm length scales in almost all fields of science, including medicine, biology and environmental science. Soft X-ray microscopy is among the few techniques that can help explaining some phenomena. Although, the field of soft X-ray microscopy is relatively new, but expanding rapidly. It is highly complementary to other microscopy techniques, such as optical microscopy, transmission electron-microscopy, or other local probe microscopes (e.g. AFM).

Soft X-ray microscopy in the ‘water window’ region (2.3 – 4.4 nm) is unique in that water is relatively transparent but where the building block elements of organic matters, such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, have strong absorption features. These absorption features provide the contrast mechanisms required to form high-resolution images, which in principle are limited in resolution only by the wavelength of the radiation, which in the soft X-ray case is of the order of a few nanometres. This, combined with the deep penetrating nature of the X-rays used, can allow the imaging of an entire cell at sufficient resolution to identify specific molecules and their dominant chemical constituents and make-up.

Soft X-ray microscopy in the water window region offers several essential advantages:

  1. An intermediary spatial resolution, typically around 20-100 nm;
  2. It can be applied to unstained thicker biological samples (up to 10 μm), unlike an electron microscope, with limited beam damage;
  3. It allows to study samples in their natural state and environment without requiring a high vacuum environment.

While Soft X-ray microscopy offers many unique advantages, it needs a large synchrotron facility radiation source. To overcome this roadblock, NANO-UV has developed McXI™-II, the first commercial stand-alone compact soft X-ray microscope. It is highly complementary to other microscopy techniques providing information of prime importance with a broad range of applications to important scientific problems.