  ANTARES beamline (BL), a new soft X-ray scanning photoemission microscope
located at the SOLEIL synchrotron storage ring has been recently designed,
built and commissioned. The implemented interferometer control allows the
accurate measurement of the transverse position of the Fresnel zone plate (FZP)
relative to the sample. An effective sample position feedback has been achieved
during experiments in static mode, with a fixed FZP position required to
perform nano Angle-Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy (Nano-ARPES)
measurements. Likewise, long-term stability has been attained for the FZP
position relative to the sample during the translation of the FZP when
performing typical X-ray absorption experiments around the absorption edges of
light elements. Moreover, a fully automatic feedback digital control of the
interferometric system provides extremely low orthogonal distortion of the
recorded two-dimensional images. The microscope is diffraction limited with the
resolution set to several tens of nanometers by the quality of the zone plates.
Details on the design of the interferometric system and a brief description of
the first commissioning results are presented here.
