The present invention relates generally to an x-ray beam system.
There are various applications which utilize conditioned beams, which include, but are not limited to, directed, monochromatized, collimated or focused x-rays. For example, medical radiotherapy systems utilize x-rays to destroy malignant tissue, x-ray diffraction or scattering analysis systems channel x-ray radiation at a sample, crystal or non-crystal, to generate a diffraction or scattering pattern corresponding to its structure, and x-ray fluorescence and spectroscopy systems employ an x-ray beam to generate secondary radiation and analyze the secondary radiation to obtain compositional information.
In the field of x-ray diffraction, an x-ray instrument, such as a diffractometer, employs an x-ray beam conditioned by an optical system to meet certain requirements, including spatial definition (such as parallelism), spectrum purity, and intensity, as well as other requirements. These parameters, however, are typically interdependent and, therefore, cannot be optimized independently. That is, usually, improving or optimizing one parameter often times results in an unavoidable cost to the other parameters.
Different optical systems have been developed for different purposes in the aforementioned x-ray systems, such as, for example, parabolic multilayer reflectors for producing monochromatic parallel beams, parabolic multilayer reflectors coupled with channel-cut monochromator for producing Kα1 parallel beams, and elliptical multilayer reflectors for producing monochromatic focusing beams.
Different optical systems are needed for different applications, or the capability of a diffractometer is limited. Significant effort may be required to change and align an optical component whenever it is installed or changed. Further, having these various optical systems can be costly.