''Experimental and theoretical study of bragg-Fresnel optics etched on multilayer structures. Application: lenses for X-Ray imaging''

This work concerns the study of a new type of X-ray focusing optics known as Bragg-Fresnel lenses developed for imaging in the X and X-UV range. These optics, etched on multilayer structure, combine the focusing properties of zone plate with the Bragg reflection of multilayer used like support. Using synchrotron sources and a plasma source produced by a laser, we tested the efficiency and the spatial resolution of these lenses. With a monochromatic beam, we first obtained the image of a object by using the first order diffraction of an elliptical off-axis Bragg-Fresnel lens. By using only one part of a lens, the superposition of different diffraction orders in focal plane can be avoided, thus improving the image contrast. In order to evaluate the chromatic aberrations of these lenses, we have summed on the same image, three exposures at different energies in the band pass of the multilayer. To reduce these kind of aberrations, we used a system composed of two off-axis lenses. To simplify the alignment, we tested an elliptical off-axis lens associated with a lamellar grating. Thus we are able to validate the theoretical approximation of an off-axis Bragg-Fresnel lens to a variable spaced grating. Finally, to show the perturbation brought by the zeroth order, we successively imaged a laser plasma source with a centred and an off-axis elliptical lenses. As with the synchrotron source, a set of images of a test object enabled us to improve the spatial resolution. (author)