Presentation + Paper
21 August 2024 Silicon pore x-ray optics for the NewAthena telescope
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The European Space Agency (ESA), cosine and its partners have been developing for 20 years the Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) technology. SPO enables the next generation of space x-ray telescopes, with increased sensitivity and resolution. NewAthena, the New Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics, has just been endorsed by ESA as one of its Lclass mission, to launch around 2037. NewAthena’s optic is modular and consists of up to 600 mirror modules that form together a ~2.5 m diameter X-ray mirror with a focal length of 12 m and an angular resolution of 9 arc-seconds half-energy width. The total polished mirror surface is ~300 m2, which will focus X-rays with an energy of about 0.3 – 10 keV onto two detectors, a wild-field imager (WFI) and an imaging spectrometer (XIFU). Building hundreds of such SPO mirror modules in a cost-efficient and timely manner is a formidable task and subject of a dedicated ESA technology development program.

We present in this paper the status of the optics production and illustrate not only recent X-ray results but also the progress made on the environmental testing, manufacturing and assembly aspects of SPO based optics.
Conference Presentation
(2024) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Maximilien J. Collon, Luis Abalo, Nicolas M. Barrière, Alex Bayerle, Donny De Borst, Luigi Castiglione, Loes Crama, Abdelhakim Chatbi, Noë Eenkhoorn, David Girou, Ramses Günther, James Harpur, Enrico Hauser, Jasper den Hollander, Yvette Jenkins, Boris Landgraf, Adam Lassise, Laurens Keek, Christian Körnig, Sebastian Obwaller, Ben Okma, Paulo da Silva Ribeiro, Chris Rizos, Aniket Thete, Giuseppe Vacanti, Sjoerd Verhoeckx, Mark Vervest, Roel Visser, Luc Voruz, Marcos Bavdaz, Ivo Ferreira, Eric Wille, Pieter Smid, Mathijs Bosman, Jeroen Haneveld, Arenda Koelewijn, Jan-Joost Lankwarden, Mark Olde Riekerink, Bart Schurink, Ronald Start, Maurice Wijnperle, Levent Cibik, Robert Fechner, Michael Krumrey, Dieter Skroblin, Vadim Burwitz, Finn E. Christensen, Desirée Della Monica Ferreira, Sonny Massahi, Diego P. Sanz, Sara Svendsen, Ethan Dunnell, Paul Lupton, William Mundon, Andrew Rees, Carles Colldelram, Dominique Heinis, Alejandro Sánchez, Norman Niewrzella, Stefano Basso, Alberto Moretti, Bianca Salmaso, and Daniele Spiga "Silicon pore x-ray optics for the NewAthena telescope", Proc. SPIE 13093, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2024: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 1309319 (21 August 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3019675
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KEYWORDS
Mirrors

X-rays

X-ray optics

Silicon

Semiconducting wafers

Optical benches

Optics manufacturing

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