Method of printing and implementing refractive X-ray optical components

A method of fabricating an x-ray refractive optical element, the method comprising:

• providing a substrate with a resin;
• providing radiation perpendicular to an optical axis, to a portion of the resin, the radiation configured to cause two photon polymerization of the resin, the optical axis being parallel to the substrate;
• forming, by two photon polymerization, a first surface of a polymer refractive optical element from the resin, the first surface disposed along the optical axis of the refractive optical element and the first surface having a roughness of less than 100 nanometers;
• and
• forming, by two photon polymerization, a second surface of the polymer refractive optical element, the second surface disposed along the optical axis of the refractive optical element and the second surface having a roughness of less than 100 nanometers, wherein at least one of the first and second surfaces is configured to provide different focuses to different transverse components of a beam along the optical axis with the first surface being asymmetric to the second surface about the optical axis.