A Shack-Hartmann Sensor for Single-Shot Multi-Contrast Imaging with Hard X-rays

An array of compound refractive X-ray lenses (CRL) with 20 x 20 lenslets, a focal distance of 20 cm and a visibility of 0.93 is presented. It can be used as a Shack-Hartmann sensor for hard X-rays (SHARX) for wavefront sensing and permits for true single-shot multi-contrast imaging the dynamics of materials with a spatial resolution in the micrometer range, sensitivity on nanosized structures and temporal resolution on the microsecond scale. The object’s absorption and its induced wavefront shift can be assessed simultaneously together with information from diffraction channels. In contrast to the established Hartmann sensors the SHARX has an increased flux efficiency through focusing of the beam rather than blocking parts of it. We investigated the spatiotemporal behavior of a cavitation bubble induced by laser pulses. Furthermore, we validated the SHARX by measuring refraction angles of a single diamond CRL, where we obtained an angular resolution better than 4 μrad.