Thin-shell plastic lenses for space and laboratory applications
We have identified an inexpensive, readily available, mechanically stable, extremely smooth, elastic, and mechanically uniform plastic suitable for thin film X-ray optics. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is easily deformed without losing its elastic properties or surface smoothness. Most important, PET can be coated with mono- or multilayers that reflect X-rays at grazing incidence. We have used these properties to produce X-ray optics made either as a concentric nest of cylinders or as a spiral. We have produced accurately formed shells in precisely machined vacuum mandresl or used a pin and wheel structure to form a continuously wound spiral. The wide range of medical, industrial and sci…
Carbon coatings for soft-x-ray reflectivity enhancement
In X-ray astronomical telescopes, the focalization of the radiation is achieved by means of grazing incidence Wolter I (parabola + hyperbola) optics in total reflection regime. In general, high density materials (e.g. Au, Pt, Ir, W) are used as reflecting coatings, in order to increase as much as possible the cut-off angles and energies for total reflection. However these materials present an important reduction of the reflectivity between 0.2 and 5 keV, due to the photoabsorption, and this phenomenon is particularly enhanced in correspondence of the M absorption edges (between 2 and 3.5 keV). In general, this determines a strong decrease of the telescope effective area. To overcome the pro…