<title>Imaging properties of refractive microcapillary x-ray lens</title>

Abstract

Microcapillary lens, designed in the form of glass capillary filled by a set of concave spherical microlenses, is a novel design of the compound refractive lens for X-rays. The microlenses inside the capillary are formed by putting air bubbles into epoxy. The interface between two air bubbles has a biconcave form and may acts as a lens for X-rays. The lens for investigations was realized in the form of 200-microns in diameter glass microcapillary filled by 137 individual epoxy spherical concave lenses. The lens focal length is about 10 cm for 8-keV X-rays. Adelphi Technology, Inc. formerly tested the microcapillary lens at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory for 7-12 keV X-rays. It was shown that the lens focuses 8-keV synchrotron radiation X-ray beam into micron-sized spot. We have studied a possibility to use the lens for imaging applications for the case when an ordinary copper-anode X-ray tube was used as a source of radiation. The image of the object was recorded by CMOS-camera. The object, lens and CMOS-camera were placed inline at a distance to one from each another satisfied to the lens formula. Results of experiments on with lens imaging of gold mesh are presented and discussed.