Near field stacking of zone plates for reduction of their effective zone period

Here we analyze the potential of a new fabrication method for high resolution zone plates with high aspect ratios based on near field stacking of frequency doubled atomic layer deposited (ALD) zone plates. The proposed method enables reduction of the effective zone period by a factor of four with two zone plate layers compared to the initial e-beam lithography exposed outermost zone period. It also overcomes the problem that very small zone widths with high aspect ratios have to be fabricated for high-resolution hard X-ray microscopy. Using rigorous coupled wave theory, we have analyzed the diffraction behavior of these near field stacked zone plates and investigated strategies to optimize fabrication parameters to compensate for separation of stacked zone plates. The calculations performed for 8 keV photon energy and effective outermost zone widths of 28 nm and 15 nm predict diffraction efficiencies ≥ 20% suggesting that such optics could find widespread practical applications.