Textbook for hard X-ray focusing with Kirkpatrick-Baez optics

1. Background Currently, grand-scale synchrotron radiation facilities, where high-quality X-ray sources are available in wide energy ranges from the softto hardX-ray regions, have significantly advanced the performance characteristics of analytical technologies using the fluorescence, absorption and diffraction effects of X-rays in various materials. The application of X-ray microscopy with these exceptional X-ray characteristics has expanded in the fields of material, medical and biological sciences, due to the fact that this method is capable of nondestructive analysis of material characteristics for a variety of different samples including cells and proteins. Since focused X-ray beams are required to transmit spatially distributed information, X-ray focusing technologies are considered to be critical to the advancement of X-ray microscopy, with various methods based on diffraction (e.g. Fresnel zone plate) refraction (e.g. Compound reflective lenses) and total reflection (e.g. Kirkpatrick-Baez mirrors) being developed.