Assembly of confocal silicon pore optic mirror modules for Athena

Authors :: Marcos Bavdaz
Marco W. Beijersbergen
Boris Landgraf
Sjoerd Verhoeckx
Maximilien J. Collon
Mark Vervest
Ronald Start
Giuseppe Vacanti
Arenda Koelewijn
Laurens Keek
Ben Okma
Michael Krumrey
Nicolas M. Barrière
Coen van Baren
Evelyn Handick
Sebastiaan Fransen
Ramses Günther
Jan-Joost Lankwarden
Alexander Eigenraam
Giuseppe Valsecchi
David Girou
Enrico Hauser
Peter Müller
Luc Voruz
Eric Wille
Jeroen Haneveld
Maurice Wijnperle
Ljubiša Babić
Source :: Optics for EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Astronomy IX.
Publication Year :: 2019
Publisher :: SPIE, 2019.
Abstract: Silicon Pore Optic (SPO) is the X-ray mirror technology selected for the Athena X-ray observatory. The optic is modular; in the current design, it is made of about 700 co-aligned mirror modules. SPO is produced as stacks of 35 mirror plates, which are then paired to form X-ray Optics Units (XOUs) following a modified Wolter I geometry. A mirror module is composed of two confocal XOUs bonded in between a pair of brackets allowing interfacing to the mirror structure. Mirror modules are assembled using the XPBF 2.0 beamline of PTB at the synchrotron radiation facility BESSY II, using pencil beam and dedicated jigs. In this paper we present the challenges and solutions related to making confocal mirror modules.