Novel technique for high-precision Bragg-angle determination in crystal X-ray spectroscopy

A novel technique for a high-precision large acceptance determination of the Bragg angle in crystal x-ray spectroscopy is presented and demonstrated. The method exploits visible light beams as fiducials reflected on the x-ray crystal's surface to ensure exact knowledge of the position on the crystal at which the x rays are reflected, replacing entrance slits, thus making flat crystals suitable for low x-ray fluxes. It can be shown that many error sources arising from uncertainties in the determination of geometrical properties are eliminated in this way. A flat crystal x-ray spectrometer based on this technique has been designed, built, and tested using the most precisely known wavelengths emitted by highly charged ions, namely H- and He-like argon. The result for the 1s2p 1P1-->1s2 1S0 w-line of He-like argon exhibits a statistical uncertainty of 3.8 ppm and an estimated systematic error of about 3 ppm, thus becoming the most accurate measurement of the He-like resonance transition in highly charged ions. It is shown that achieving a systematic error of below 1 ppm is feasible with this method. Therefore, our technique should allow reaching total accuracies approaching 1 ppm on transitions of mid-Z highly charged ions, which would provide challenging tests for state-of-the-art theoretical predictions