Graded multilayers for fully polarization resolved Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering in the soft x-ray range

On the upgraded ESRF soft x-ray beamline ID32 a new spectrometer for Resonant X-ray Inelastic Scattering (RIXS) will be installed. To operate in fully polarized mode, a polarimeter will be inserted in the instrument to measure simultaneously the energy spectra and the linear polarization. The new spectrometer works between 500 eV and 1000 eV and requires graded multilayers to optimize the energy tunability and the polarization sensitivity. The present work covers the design, the fabrication, and the characterization of the multilayers. Performance evaluations during test and commissioning experiments with soft x-rays complement the paper.