Performance Optimization for Hard X‐ray Microscopy Beamlines Guided by Partially‐Coherent Wavefront Propagation Calculations

Hard x‐ray range synchrotron radiation still remains only partially coherent even for ultra‐low emittance third‐generation sources, such as NSLS‐II. On the other hand, many of the scientific goals targeted by new advanced hard x‐ray microscopy beamlines—e.g. development of scanning microscopy with nanometer‐scale spatial resolution or coherent diffraction imaging microscopy—require high degree of transverse coherence and high radiation flux at a sample. Detailed quantitative prediction of partially‐coherent x‐ray beam properties at propagation from an undulator, along a beamline with a number of optical elements, can only be obtained from accurate physical‐optics based numerical simulations. We present an example of such simulations performed for the NSLS‐II Hard x‐ray Nanoprobe beamline using “Synchrotron Radiation Workshop” (SRW) computer code. In addition to tracking of intensity distributions at different locations of the beamline, we include numerical experiments with a two‐slit interference scheme i...