1. Properties of Soft X Rays. - 1. 1. Introduction. - 1. 2. Interaction of Soft X Rays with Matter. - 1. 3. Sources of Soft X Rays. - 1. 4. Detectors of Soft X Rays. - 1. 5. General Features of Soft X-Ray Optics. - 2. Reflective Optics for Soft X Rays I. Grazing Incidence. - 2. 1. Total External Reflection. - 2. 2. Focusing with Spherical Mirrors at Grazing Incidence. - 2. 3. Focusing at Grazing Incidence with Single Aspheric Reflectors. - 2. 4. Compound Systems. - 2. 5. Resolution of Grazing Incidence Systems. - 3. Manufacture of Grazing Incidence Reflective Optics. - 3. 1. Manufacturing Tolerances. - 3. 2. Manufacturing Techniques. - 3. 3. Metrology of Grazing Incidence Optical Components. - 4. Reflective Optics for Soft X Rays II. Multilayer Mirrors. - 4. 1. Reflection of Soft X Rays by Multilayer Mirrors. - 4. 2. Focusing with Multilayer Mirrors. - 5. Manufacture of Multilayer Mirrors. - 5. 1. Manufacturing Tolerances. - 5. 2. Manufacturing Techniques. - 6. Diffractive Optics I. Diffraction Gratings. - 6. 1. Introduction. - 6. 2. Plane Linear Gratings. - 6. 3. Concave Spherical Gratings. - 6. 4. Aspheric Gratings. - 7. The Design and Manufacture of X-Ray Diffraction Gratings. - 7. 1. Manufacturing Tolerances and Types of Grating. - 7. 2. Manufacturing Techniques. - 8. Diffractive Optics II. Zone Plates. - 8. 1. Fresnel and Soret Amplitude Zone Plates. - 8. 2. Improvement of Image QualityModified Amplitude Zone Plates. - 8. 3. Other Types of Modified Amplitude Zone Plate. - 8. 4. Gabor Zone Plates. - 8. 5. Phase-Modulating Zone Plates. - 9. Manufacture of Zone Plates. - 9. 1. Manufacturing Tolerances. - 9. 2. Manufacturing Techniques. - 9. 3. Stability of Zone Plates. - 10. Applications of Soft X-Ray Focusing Systems. - 10. 1. Introduction. - 10. 2. Synchrotron Radiation Beam Lines and Monochromators. - 10. 3. Small-Angle X-RayScattering. - 10. 4. X-Ray Microscopy. - 10. 5. Imaging of Laser Fusion Plasmas. - 10. 6. X-Ray Astronomy. - 10. 7. X-Ray Spectroscopy. - 11. Future Developments. - 11. 1. Introduction. - 11. 2. Sources of Soft X Rays. - 11. 3. New Developments in Soft X-Ray Optics. - 11. 4. New Uses of Soft X Rays. - 11. 5. Conclusions. - References. Language: English