New method to make a smooth surface on Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) substrate

Abstract

CFRP is a composite material composed of carbon fiber and resin. CFRP is commonly applied to the aerospace industry which requires lightweight and intensity. Thanks to superior formability of CFRP, we can form shape of Wolter-1 optics, which consists of paraboloid and hyperboloid, to a monolithic substrate. Since the surface roughness of a CFRP substrate is a few µm, we have to make the smooth surface for reflecting X-rays on the CFRP substrate. We have developed a new method of shaping the reflective surface instead of the replica method used in lightweight X-ray mirrors such as Astro-H. In the new method, the reflective surface is formed by pasting thin sheet-glasses with 100 µm thick onto the CFRP substrate. The thin sheet-glass has a surface roughness about 0.4 nm as measured by Zygo. We fabricated a CFRP mirror pasting thin sheet-glasses, and then coated tungsten on the mirror in June 2020. The figure error (s) of the CFRP mirror was achieved to be about 1-2 μm by stacking the CFRP mirror on the housing module. X-ray imaging quality of the CFRP mirror was measured at Spring-8 in July 2020. The half-power diameter of the CFRP mirror was estimated to be about 150 arcsec, which was nearly equal to the prediction from a distribution of the slope error deduced from the surface profile. We describe a future plan to improve the image quality of the CFRP mirror.