Diffractive X-ray optics, like Fresnel zone plate lenses, are widely employed X-ray optics for collimation and focusing. While they are extremely versatile and easy to use optical elements, they generally suffer from limited efficiency due to limitations in fabrication possibilities. Near-field stacking is an established concept for overcoming fabrication limitations, yet its existing implementations suffer from issues regarding complexity and stability. In this work, an alternative stacking concept is explored, by patterning both the front and back sides of a single membrane. Such double-sided zone plates are shown to exchange conventional zone plate stacks in increasing the efficiency or resolution of conventional zone plate optics. In conventional stacking, they achieve 9.9% focusing efficiency at 9 keV with 30 nm smallest half-pitch and diffraction limited optical performance. Following the blazed stacking scheme, they are shown to provide up to 54.7% diffraction efficiency at 6.2 keV. Finally, using the novel concept of interlaced stacking, they demonstrate the feasibility of large aperture X-ray optics for sub-10 nm X-ray nanofocusing.
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