Abstract: Light-intensive zone plates (4) are disclosed which are useful as condensers and X-ray objectives for high resolution X-ray microscopes. They have high refraction effectiveness in a high refraction order thanks to a high aspect ratio (H/P) and a suitably adjusted line-slot ratio (P.sub.1 /P.sub.2) lower than 1. Additional improvements may be obtained by zones (6, 7) inclined relative to the optical axis (3). The zone plates (4) may also be operated in Bragg reflection. They thus provide efficient optics with a high numeric aperture and make X-ray microscopes with 10 nm resolution possible. The zone plates (4) may have a relatively coarse structure, and thus they are easy to produce in a relatively short time. The zone plates (4) with high numerical aperture may be used in a particularly advantageous manner as small condensers in laboratory X-ray microscopes, as they can capture light from a microplasma X-ray radiation source in a particularly wide solid angle and focus it on an object.