X-ray microscopy is an interdisciplinary topic, both in terms of its technical details and in terms of the scientific and engineering problems it is applied to. While there are a number of books that provide excellent coverage of certain aspects of x-ray physics, optics, and microscopy, it is my opinion that there has not been a single book that one can hand to someone new in the field of x-ray microscopy to give them an introduction to most of the key aspects they should know about. This book is an attempt to fill that need.

Are you a new PhD student entering a research group who will use x-ray microscopy for part of your research? If so, you have probably had at least a year or so of university physics during your studies. You are whom I have written the book for! At times I may push you a bit further in mathematics or physics than what you have learned thus far, but if you are in a PhD program you are a serious enough student so this should be OK. Besides, you can always skim over some of the more detailed points.

Are you an established researcher or engineer who is new to x-ray microscopy? This book is also for you! Your expertise might be with microscopes using other radiation, or on materials you hope to understand better using x-ray microscopy.

What I hope to do in this book is to give you a feel for the fundamental ideas that come into play in a variety of x-ray microscopy approaches and applications, and to do so with enough detail to allow you to go off and invent new approaches of your own. I look forward to seeing your contributions to x-ray microscopy!

What do I mean by x-ray microscopy? I have decided to focus on imaging at a spatial resolution of a few micrometers down to nanometers. This is not a book on medical radiology at 0.1 mm resolution as limited by acceptable radiation exposure, and it is not a book on crystallography.