Nanofabrication advances for high efficiency critical-angle transmission gratings

Abstract

We report several break-through nanofabrication developments enabling high efficiency and high resolving power spectrometers in the soft x-ray band. The device is the critical-angle transmission (CAT) grating, which combines the low mass and relaxed alignment tolerances of a transmission grating with the high broad-band efficiency and high diffraction orders of a blazed reflection grating. Past work successfully demonstrated the CAT grating concept; however, the open-area fraction was often less than 20% whilst more than 50% is desired. This presents numerous nanofabrication challenges including a requirement for a freestanding silicon membrane of ultra high-aspect ratio bars at a period of 200 nanometers with minimal cross support blockage. Furthermore, the sidewalls must be smooth to a few nanometers to efficiently reflect soft x-rays. We have developed a complete nanofabrication process for creating freestanding CAT gratings via plasma-etching silicon wafers with a buried layer of SiO 2 . This removable buried layer enables combining a record-performance plasma etch for the CAT grating with a millimeter-scale honeycomb structural support to create a large-area freestanding membrane. We have also developed a process for polishing sidewalls of plasma-etched ultra-high aspect ratio nanoscale silicon structures via potassium hydroxide (KOH). This process utilizes the anisotropic etch nature of single crystal silicon in KOH. We developed a novel alignment technique to align the CAT grating bars to the {111} planes of silicon within 0.2 degrees, which enables KOH to etch away sidewall roughness without destroying the structure, since the {111} planes etch approximately 100 times slower than the non-{111} planes. Preliminary results of a combined freestanding grating with polishing are presented to enable efficient diffraction of soft x-rays.