Review of plane grating focusing for soft x-ray monochromators

During the last 10 years various types of soft x-ray monochromators have been developed, which are optically based on the plane grating focusing condition introduced in 1980. These instruments as well as those using the original 1980 optical configuration are reviewed and compared to the other type of high performance soft x-ray grating monochromator, the Rowland circle based spherical grating monochromator (SGM). Performance data of a plane grating monochromator (HE-PGM-3), which was recently commissioned at BESSY and which offers a broad spectral range (40–2000 eV) and very high spectral resolution (up to E/ΔE∼10 000) are given in more detail. The performance of grating and crystal monochromators is compared in the 1–2 keV photon energy range.