The main topics discussed in this paper are soft X-ray plasma sources

multilayer soft X-ray mirrors and soft X-ray microscopes. The powerful

laboratory soft X-ray plasma sousces offer some advantages over synchrotron radiation in terms of smaller physical size

lower cost

large beam size and higher flux per pulse. Recently developed multilayer coatings permit use of normal incidence optics for soft X-ray promissing a resolution that should be substainlly better than that obtained with grazing incidence optics. Soft X-ray microscope has provided a new tool for analyzing biological specimens and filled the gap existing between two well developed instruments

the optical ane the electron microscopes.