We present a cylindrically curved GaAs x-ray spectrometer with energy
resolution ΔE/E=1.1⋅10−4 and wave-number resolution of
Δk/k=3⋅10−3, allowing plasmon scattering at the resolution
limits of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) x-ray free-electron laser. It
spans scattering wavenumbers of 3.6 to 5.2/\AA\ in 100 separate bins, with
only 0.34\% wavenumber blurring. The dispersion of 0.418~eV/13.5μm agrees
with predictions within 1.3\%. The reflection homogeneity over the entire
wavenumber range was measured and used to normalize the amplitude of scattering
spectra. The proposed spectrometer is superior to a mosaic HAPG spectrometer
when the energy resolution needs to be comparable to the LCLS seeded bandwidth
of 1~eV and a significant range of wavenumbers must be covered in one exposure