Partial coherence and imperfect optics at a synchrotron radiation source modeled by wavefront propagation

A full wave propagation of X-rays from source to sample at a storage ring beamline requires simulation of the electron beam source and optical elements in the beamline. The finite emittance source causes the appearance of partial coherence in the wave field. Consequently, the wavefront cannot be treated exactly with fully coherent wave propagation or fully incoherent ray tracing. We have used the wavefront code Synchrotron Radiation Workshop (SRW) to perform partially coherent wavefront propagation using a parallel computing cluster at the Diamond Light Source. Measured mirror profiles have been used to correct the wavefront for surface errors.