Mechanical design of a flexural nanopositioning stage system for hard x-ray nanofocusing at the Advanced Photon Source 32-ID-C station

Abstract

The Transmission X-ray Microscope (TXM) at beamline 32-ID-C of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) is a high throughput instrument with high spatial resolution for operando nano-tomography experiments [1]. Recently, a flexural nanopositioning stage system has been designed, and constructed at the APS for a set of JTECTM Kirkpatrick-Baez (KB) mirrors to be installed at the beamline 32-ID-C station. It will focus X-ray down to a 15-20 nm focal spot that will serve as a point source for projection microscopy. Many flexural stages in the stage system are using the same designs developed by APS for the beamline 34-ID-E [2]. However, the new stage system configuration is optimized for the operation conditions at the APS 32-ID-C to accommodate large nano-tomography sample stages. The experiences gained from this new flexural nanopositioning stage system design will benefit designs of K-B mirror nanofocusing stages for other x-ray nanoprobe beamline instruments at the APS-Upgrade project, especially for the In-Situ Nanoprobe instrument design. The mechanical design of the flexural stages, as well as its preliminary mechanical test results with laser interferometer are described in this paper.