Development of light weight replicated x-ray optics, II

Abstract

NASA’S future X-ray astronomy missions will require X-ray optics that have large effective area while remaining lightweight, and cost effective. Some X-ray missions, such as XMM-Newton[1] , and the upcoming Spectrum-Röntgen- Gamma[2] mission use an electroformed nickel replication (ENR) process[3] to fabricate the nested grazing incidence X-ray telescope mirror shells for an array of moderate resolution, moderate effective area telescopes. We are developing a process to fabricate metal-ceramic replicated optics which will be lighter weight than current nickel replicated technology. Our technology development takes full advantage of the replication technique by fabricating large diameter mirrors with thin cross sections allowing maximum nesting and increase in collecting area. This will lead to future cost effective missions with large effective area and lightweight optics with good angular resolution. Recent results on fabrication and testing of these optics is presented.