Advancements in X-ray waveguides and their applications in coherent diffraction imaging

X-ray planar waveguides are currently used tools, in synchrotron radiation facilities, to produce a coherent beam with typical dimensions in the range of tens or hundreds of nanometers. The properties of waveguided beams such as divergence and coherence turns out to be very interesting for several applications both in synchrotron and in laboratory sources. These features will be reviewed in the present paper for different coupling methods of the radiation field with the waveguide channel. Details of fabrication procedures and experimental results concerning front coupling waveguide are reported. The waveguide properties can be estimated from the far-field diffracted beam by a Fourier analysis giving the autocorrelation function of the exit field. Due to the high degree of coherence of the exiting beam, X-ray waveguides can be successfully exploited in coherent diffraction imaging experiments. We review results concerning Fresnel coherent diffraction imaging experiments with hard X-rays, using planar waveguides as optical elements in one and two dimensions.