Modular soft x-ray spectrometer for applications in energy sciences and quantum materials

Journal Article · 27 January 2017 · Review of Scientific Instruments

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4974356 · OSTI ID:1361744

Chuang, Yi -De ^[1]; Shao, Yu -Cheng ^[2]; Cruz, Alejandro ^[1]; Hanzel, Kelly ^[1]; Brown, Adam ^[1]; Frano, Alex ^[3]; Qiao, Ruimin ^[1]; Smith, Brian ^[1]; Domning, Edward ^[1]; Huang, Shih -Wen ^[4]; Wray, L. Andrew ^[5]; Lee, Wei -Sheng ^[6]; Shen, Zhi -Xun ^[7]; Devereaux, Thomas P. ^[6]; Chiou, Jaw -Wern  ^[8]; Pong, Way -Faung ^[2]; Yashchuk, Valeriy V. ^[1]; Gullikson, Eric ^[1]; Reininger, Ruben  ^[9]; Yang, Wanli  ^[1] ; Guo, Jinghua  ^[1]; Duarte, Robert ^[1]; Hussain, Zahid ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2. Tamkang Univ., New Taipei City (Taiwan)
3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
4. Lund Univ., Lund (Sweden)
5. New York Univ. (NYU), New York, NY (United States)
6. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
7. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
8. National Univ. of Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung (Taiwan)
9. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Over the past decade, the advances in grating-based soft X-ray spectrometers have revolutionized the soft X-ray spectroscopies in materials research. However, these novel spectrometers are mostly dedicated designs, which cannot be easily adopted for applications with diverging demands. Here we present a versatile spectrometer design concept based on the Hettrick-Underwood optical scheme that uses modular mechanical components. The spectrometer’s optics chamber can be used with gratings operated in either inside or outside orders, and the detector assembly can be reconfigured accordingly. The spectrometer can be designed to have high spectral resolution, exceeding 10 000 resolving power when using small source (~1μm) and detector pixels (~5μm) with high line density gratings (~3000 lines/mm), or high throughput at moderate resolution. We report two such spectrometers with slightly different design goals and optical parameters in this paper. We show that the spectrometer with high throughput and large energy window is particularly useful for studying the sustainable energy materials. We demonstrate that the extensive resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) map of battery cathode material LiNi_1/3Co_1/3Mn_1/3O₂ can be produced in few hours using such a spectrometer. Unlike analyzing only a handful of RIXS spectra taken at selected excitation photon energies across the elemental absorption edges to determine various spectral features like the localized dd excitations and non-resonant fluorescence emissions, these features can be easily identified in the RIXS maps. Studying such RIXS maps could reveal novel transition metal redox in battery compounds that are sometimes hard to be unambiguously identified in X-ray absorption and emission spectra. As a result, we propose that this modular spectrometer design can serve as the platform for further customization to meet specific scientific demands.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357; AC02-76SF00515; AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 1361744
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1353087; OSTI ID: 1365830; OSTI ID: 1420488; OSTI ID: 1530269
• Journal Information: Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 88, Issue 1; ISSN 0034-6748
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English