New developments in soft X-ray monochromators for third generation synchrotron radiation sources

The advent of third generation synchrotron soft X-ray radiation sources has opened up many new opportunities for the use of spectroscopy and microscopy to study the structure of complex materials. The ultra-high brightness of these sources offers the possibility of combining the two techniques so that the spectroscopy of microscopic areas of a material may be studied (spectromicroscopy), and in addition offers tremendous flux and resolution enhancements for traditional macroscopic surface studies. The optical properties of both bending magnet and undulator sources for use in third generation soft X-ray sources offer significant possibilities for improving the performance of optical systems compared with traditional designs. We will describe two recent such advances in beamline optical system design at the advanced light source (ALS) and review the performance of a current generation of undulator based beamlines at the ALS.