The development of 3rd generation synchrotron radiation sources like European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in parallel with recent advances in the technology of X-ray microfocusing elements like Kirkpatrick-Baez (KB) mirrors, diffractive (Fresnel zone plates, FZP) and refractive (compound refractive lenses, CRL) optics, makes it possible to use X-ray microscopy techniques with high energy X-rays (energy superior to 4 keV). Spectroscopy, imaging, tomography and diffraction studies of samples with hard X-rays at micrometre and sub-micrometre spatial resolutions are now possible. The concept of combining these techniques as a high-energy microscopy has been proposed and successfully realized at the ESRF beamlines. Therefore a short summary of X-ray microscopy techniques is presented first. The main emphasis will be put on those methods which aim to produce sub-micron and nanometre resolution. These methods fall into three broad categories: reflective, refractive and diffractive optics. The basic principles and recent achievements will be discussed for all optical devices. Recent applications of synchrotron based microanalytical techniques to characterise radioactive fuel particles (UO(2)) released from the Chernobyl reactor are reported.