Fast Modulation of Synchrotron X-Ray Beam Intensity by Standing Acoustic Waves

We demonstrated the capability to significantly modify a 25 keV x-ray intensity distributions by changing the parameters of 20 MHz acoustic waves generated in quartz crystals. As a result of the produced dynamic deformation, a remarkable broadening of the rocking curves was observed, the maximum gain reached 17 times. Tunable broadening effect allowed us an effective manipulation by x-ray intensities in time domain. By synchronizing the acoustic wave and x-ray burst periodicity, a deep modulation of x-ray intensity was achieved in a wide modulation frequency range between 0.1 Hz and 1 MHz. This proves that acoustically excited quartz crystals can be potentially used as wide-band x-ray modulators and choppers with high duty cycle