DBZ –
Dual beam zoneplates for x-ray interferometry

Interferences are a manifestation of the coherence of light, and open the door to its most precise precise property: phase. In the visible light regime, it is relatively straightforward to generate interference by using a beamsplitter. In the x-ray regime, phase also carries very valuable information, but generating a reference beam is much more difficult. 

This is why we are developing new techniques based on diffraction optics to generate a two beams about 10um apart, determine the differential phase within a sample and measure the phase information within the sample, providing much better contrast than intensity alone and opening the door to high-speed measurements (1MHz), while other tehcniques such as ptychography do not allow real-time measurements.

Resources:

• Demonstration of a Dual-Beam Zone Plate for Phase-Sensitive Coherent Soft X-ray Imaging (poster, Francis Wei He) 

• github repository: (private) https://github.com/dream-beam/xray-wavefront-engineering/tree/main/DBZ

Selected dream work:

Magnetically modified double-slit-based x-ray interferometry

Soham Atkar, Zoey Tumbleson, Sophie A. Morley, Nicolas Burdet, Antoine Islegen-Wojdyla, Kenneth A. Goldberg, AndreadScholl, S. A Montoya, Trinanjan Datta, Sujoy Roy

Physical Review Research 8, 023092 (2026)
doi.org/10.1103/5njk-mhwg - Open access: submitted draft

Demonstration of a dual-beam zone plate for phase-contrast coherent soft x-ray imaging

Wei He, Antoine Islegen-Wojdyla, Alexander Ditter, Rourav Basak, Weilun Chao, Nicolas Burdet, Xiaoya Chong, Chaoying Gu, Alex Frañó, Sujoy Roy, Andreas Scholl, David Shapiro, Kenneth Goldberg

Proceedings Volume 13620, Advances in X-Ray/EUV Sources, Optics, and Components XX; 136200H (2025)
doi.org/10.1117/12.3063646 – Open access: submitted draft