High-resolution monochromator for iron nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy of biological samples

A new high-resolution monochromator for 14.4-keV X-rays has been designed and developed for the Fe nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy of biological samples. In addition to high resolution, higher flux and stability are especially important for measuring biological samples, because of the very weak signals produced due to the low concentrations of Fe-57. A 24% increase in flux while maintaining a high resolution better than 0.9 meV is achieved in the calculation by adopting an asymmetric reflection of Ge, which is used as the first crystal of the three-bounce high-resolution monochromator. A 20% increase of the exit beam size is acceptable to our biological applications. The higher throughput of the new design has been experimentally verified. A fine rotation mechanics that combines a weak-link hinge with a piezoelectric actuator was used for controlling the photon energy of the monochromatic beam. The resulting stability is sufficient to preserve the intrinsic resolution.