Cr/C Reflective Multilayer for Wavelength of 44.8 Å

The working wavelength of Ni-like, Ta soft X-ray laser is 44.8 Å, just near the "water window." High reflection multilayers are required for this kind of laser in China. In this work, we design and fabricate carbon-based multilayer reflective samples. The Cr/C multilayer was selected from proposed candidates such as Co/C, Ni/C, and CoCr/C material combinations. The period thickness is only 22.6 Å. Cr/C multilayers were deposited by the magnetron sputtering method. Multilayers with bi-layer numbers of 150, 200, 250 and 300 were deposited onto super polished silicon wafers. All multilayers have been characterized by grazing incidence X-ray reflectance (GIXRR). Then, near-normal incidence reflectance measurements were performed at beamline 3W1B, Beijing synchrotron radiation (BSRF). The highest reflectance of 13.2% is achieved with the bi-layer number of 300. Transmission electron microscopy measurements also clearly show the sharp Cr-C interfaces in the multilayer.