Abstract
The next major observational advance in hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray astrophysics will come with the implementation of telescopes capable of focusing 10-200 keV radiation. Focusing allows high signal-to-noise imaging and spectroscopic observations of many sources in this band for the first time. The recent development of depth-graded multilayer coatings has made the design of telescopes for this bandpass practical, however the ability to manufacture inexpensive substrates with appropriate surface quality and figure to achieve sub-arcminute performance has remained an elusive goal. In this paper, we report on new, thermally-formed glass micro-sheet optics capable of meeting the requirements of the next-generation of astronomical hard X-ray telescopes.
Highlights
Sensitive observations of astrophysical sources in the hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray band provide a unique window on physical processes not observable at lower X-ray energies (E < 10 keV)
The major observational advance in hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray astrophysics will come with the implementation of telescopes capable of focusing 10-200 keV radiation
The recent development of depth-graded multilayer coatings has made the design of telescopes for this bandpass practical, the ability to manufacture inexpensive substrates with appropriate surface quality and figure to achieve sub-arcminute performance has remained an elusive goal
Summary
Sensitive observations of astrophysical sources in the hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray band provide a unique window on physical processes not observable at lower X-ray energies (E < 10 keV). The recent development of depth-graded multilayer coatings for the hard X-ray band has made designing grazing-incidence systems extending to E>100 keV practical [1,2] These coatings, which operate on the principal of Bragg reflection, increase, for fixed energy, the incidence angle for which significant reflectance can be achieved [3]. Even with depthgraded multilayer coatings, for 10 – 15 meter focal lengths, these systems have relatively small incidence (or graze) angles, and require many shells (typically 70 – 100) per mirror to achieve significant collecting area Realizing these designs in practice requires the ability to fabricate the multilayer coatings, but the development of optics with appropriate surface quality and figure capable of being manufactured in large quantities at reasonable cost. With the ability to manufacture the substrates inexpensively, this demonstrates for the first time the practicality of sub-arcminute hard X-ray optics of the quality required by next-generation balloon and space missions
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