Experimental and theoretical investigation of the coherent x-ray propagation and diffraction

Coherent X-ray diffraction and X-ray Intensity Fluctuation Spectroscopy (XIFS) are ideal methods and techniques to perform measurements on the dynamics of fluctuations in condensed matter materials. To investigate more systems and faster fluctuations by being able to tune the coherence length, we use a zone plate to change the coherence length and beam size but keep most of the intensity. Using the zone plate, experiments were carried out to measure the properties of the focused beam. We applied a formalism to calculate the effect of optics on coherence. We tested our results by doing measurement at Advanced Photon Source. We measured the focal properties of the zone plate, speckle sizes and contrast, obtained by using coherent X-ray diffraction from an disordered Fe3Al crystals. Our theoretical calculations are compared with the experimental results