High purity X-ray polarimetry – recent developments and applications

In order to be sensitive for new physical effects like the Cotton-Mouton effect or vacuum birefringence the sensitivity of recently developed X-ray polarimeter should be improved. The talk will discuss three different approaches for improvement as well as first experimental results. Further application of X-ray polarimetry for resonant nuclear scattering as well as for the atomic physics of photo excitation and X-ray fluorescence emission will be presented.