Scientists led by Dr. N. Awaji (Fujitsu Laboratories, Japan) have recently reported successful large area imaging by Fourier transform holography in both soft and hard X-ray regions. The key was the separation of a holographic mask from the sample, enabling the sample to then be scanned to increase the observation area (~10μm or even more), though the beam size was fairly limited (~1μm) to maintain good coherence. They demonstrated some magnetic domain images of perpendicular magnetized film with soft X-rays (778 eV), and also some patterned samples and the cross-section of the Cu-interconnect-line with hard X-rays (5,500 eV). The spatial resolution for the above energies was 42 and 75 nm, respectively. The experiments were performed at SPring-8 (Harima, Japan). For more information, see the paper, "Large Area Imaging by Fourier Transform Holography Using Soft and Hard X-rays", N. Awaji et al., Appl. Phys. Express 3, 085201 (2010).
