Silicon microtechnology for Xray optics

Giuseppe VACANTI, COSINE

Traditional X-ray optics manufacturing processes have made use of monolithic, co-axial shells. While they have delivered great optics that have driven the progress of X-ray astronomy for the past 50 years, these techniques do not scale when the aperture of the mirrors increases from 50cm to 3m, the  latter being a requirement for the next generation X-ray space observatories.

One way to overcome manufacturing issues is to build segmented optics, in which each unit can be assembled and tested separately before being integrated in a larger mirror structure. Here we describe the work cosine and partners have been carrying out for the past 10 years, where standard Silicon wafers are used to manufacture stacks of mirrors that are then assembled in a supporting structure.

 
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