Work

Tabletop EUV reflection dual-polarisation ptychography enables high-throughput nanoscale material-mapping and angstrom-scale profilometry

Year: 2026

Type: preprint

Abstract: Extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) reflection ptychography can deliver nanoscale surface metrology with material-specific contrast, but its practical use has been limited by slow acquisition and the need for multi-angle datasets for reliable material identification. Here, we demonstrate Brewster-range, polarisation-resolved EUV reflection ptychography: a single polarisation achieves sub-100 nm diffractionlimited resolution and ˚A-scale height precision over ∼ 90 μm × 90 μm fields of view, while the two-polarisation response at a single incidence angle, enables material identification through enhanced diattenuation and retardance. Driven by a milliwatt-class tabletop high-harmonic-generation (HHG) source and structured illumination, we reach throughputs up to ∼ 100 Mpx h−1, about two orders of magnitude higher than previous tabletop EUV reflection ptychography and comparable to synchrotron-based implementations. This places EUV reflection ptychography in a synchrotron-like throughput regime on a laboratory platform, making it a practical tool for routine, non-destructive nanoscale material characterisation in systems ranging from two-dimensional materials and metasurfaces to magnetic multilayers and catalytic surfaces, and for future ultrafast pump–probe studies.

Source: Research Square

DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9267824/v1