Design, fabrication, and polarization of soft x-ray transmission multilayers

Soft-x-ray transmission multilayers have been designed and fabricated for use as polarizing elements. Polarization performance of the multilayers has been studied at a photon energy of 97 eV by rotating analyzer ellipsometry with a multilayer reflection polarizer. The transmission multilayers were found to be a good polarizer of 99.2% polarizance and a phase shifter of 90 degree(s) retardation with equal transmission ratio (5:3) and high throughput around 10%.