Bragg reflectivity of X-rays: At the limit of the possible
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - 10:00
in Physics & Chemistry
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers utilizing high-brightness x-rays at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Sciences Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory have demonstrated that synthetic, nearly defect-free diamond crystals can reflect more than 99% of hard x-ray photons backward in Bragg diffraction, with a remarkably small variation in the magnitude of reflectivity across the sample. Their results, which are published in Nature Photonics, represent a quantum leap to the largest reflectivity measured, at the limit of what is theoretically possible. It was attained under the most challenging conditions of normal incidence and with extremely high-energy x-ray photons.
