A grazing angle microscope includes a highly convex central spherical mirror segment and a highly concave annular spherical mirror segment. A beam of incident radiant energy is sequentially directed against a part of the first convex mirror and a first part of the concave mirror onto a surface area at grazing angles so as to form a focused image on the surface area. A second part of the concave mirror collects radiant energy reflected from the surface at grazing angles and directs it to a second part of the convex mirror for reflection to a detector. Masking means are located at a focus that is remote from the surface area to determine the geometric shape of the image of the remote focus to target the surface area to be sampled by radiant energy. The masking means is adjusted during viewing in a visible light mode, with the visible light having a common optical path and common focal points with the radiant energy. The grazing angle microscope may obtain meaningful magnifications of a surface area as great as a 150 times for grazing angles between 60.degree. and 85.degree. off a normal to the surface area.
The invention relates to a grazing angle microscope for spectroscopic applications. A novel light path having two shifting planar mirrors permits spectroscopic investigation of a sample area off the optical microscope axis at grazing angles as well as visual viewing at steeper angles of incidence of the light.
A microscopic spectrometer having a separate optical path for masking light from a sample for spectrometric measurements. In the preferred embodiment, a beam splitter is disposed behind an object lens to form two branched optical paths. One of the optical paths is provided with masks at a point of focus along the path, allowing part of the image to be masked. The second optical path allows optical throughput and observation of the entire image. These two optical paths are rejoined, and a final image is obtained for visual inspection by synthesizing the two optical paths.
An optical system for x-rays combines at least two spherical or near spherical mirrors for each dimension in grazing incidence orientation to provide the functions of a lens in the x-ray region. To focus x-ray radiation in both the X and the Y dimensions, one of the mirrors focusses the X dimension, a second mirror focusses the Y direction, a third mirror corrects the X dimension by removing comatic aberration and a fourth mirror corrects the Y dimension. Spherical aberration may also be removed for an even better focus. The order of the mirrors is unimportant.
In an infrared (IR) microscope for a Fourier transform (FT) infrared spectrometer with a Cassegrain mirror-lens with which an incident beam (15) can be focused via a convex mirror (16) and a concave mirror (17) onto a first point-shaped region (19) on the surface of a sample (20) under an angle of incidence .beta.<60.degree. relative to the optical axis (22) and subsequent to travelling through an optical path x, a first planar mirror (1) and a second planar mirror (2) are arranged between the concave mirror (17) and the surface of the sample (20) such that the luminous beam (30) reflected from the concave mirror (17) in the direction of the sample (20) is focused onto the first planar mirror (1), onto the second planar mirror (2), then onto a second point-shaped region (19') on the surface of the sample (20), the second point-shaped region lying on the optical axis (22) closer to the lens (16, 17) than the first point-shaped region (19), whereby the sum of the optical paths is equal to the optical path x, whereby the angle of incidence .beta.' is larger than 60.degree. and whereby a third planar mirror (3) and a fourth planar mirror (4) are arranged symmetrically with respect to the second (2) and first (1) planar mirrors.
An infrared microscope is disclosed which provides illumination for reflectance by the sample. This illumination follows a path through the objective toward the sample, and again, after reflection, through the objective toward the detector. The reflectance illumination is directed toward the objective and sample by a fully reflective mirror, which injects approximately half of the interferometer beam into the microscope, and permits substantially all of the reflected beam to reach the detector.
