Measurement of diffraction properties of photon sieves applied to spectroscopy for soft X-ray

The principle of a photon sieve applied to soft X-ray spectroscopy is introduced, and the transmittance of the photon sieve is calculated. The diffraction pattern of the photon sieve is simulated and measured in visible light wave band. It is shown that the dispersive component has good single order diffraction properties, i.e. the third order and higher order diffraction can be suppressed effectively. The photon sieve applied to soft X-ray spectroscopy can realize self-sustaining easily compared with the conventional transmission grating and single-order diffraction grating designed before, and it might be employed widely for X-ray and extreme ultraviolet spectroscopic diagnoses. (authors)