This Expedited Award for Novel Research is an extension of work previously supported under NSF grant ECS-8611875. Under the previous grant research, Professor Byer and his group have made major advances in development of a tabletop-sized scanning soft x-ray microscope using a laser-produced plasma as the source of intense X-rays. This approach to a scanning soft x-ray microscope is currently the only such one which does not require a major synchrotron light source facility as the radiation source. Professor Byer has proposed a novel utilization of this new microscope capability to demonstrate x-ray transmission tomography of small samples at 140A wavelength. The various techniques of computer tomography currently employed for 3- dimensional imaging have already had major impact on fields such as medicine, biology, and materials research. This project could provide a significant new research capability in these areas and would be the first demonstration of soft x-ray tomography.
