Magnetic field assisted finishing of ultra-lightweight and high-resolution MEMS x-ray micro-pore optics

Abstract

In recent years, X-ray telescopes have been shrinking in both size and weight to reduce cost and volume on space flight missions. Current designs focus on the use of MEMS technologies to fabricate ultra-lightweight and high-resolution X-ray optics. In 2006, Ezoe et al. introduced micro-pore X-ray optics fabricated using anisotropic wet etching of silicon (110) wafers. These optics, though extremely lightweight (completed telescope weight 1 kg or less for an effective area of 1000 cm²), had limited angular resolution, as the reflecting surfaces were flat crystal planes. To achieve higher angular resolution, curved reflecting surfaces should be used. Both silicon dry etching and X-ray LIGA were used to create X-ray optics with curvilinear micro-pores; however, the resulting surface roughness of the curved micro-pore sidewalls did not meet X-ray reflection criteria of 10 nm rms in a 10 μm² area. This indicated the need for a precision polishing process. This paper describes the development of an ultra-precision polishing process employing an alternating magnetic field assisted finishing process to polish the micro-pore side walls to a mirror finish (< 4 nmrms). The processing principle is presented, and a polishing machine is designed and fabricated to explore the feasibility of this polishing process as a possible method for processing MEMS X-ray optics to meet X-ray reflection specifications.