Abstract
Athena is the European Space Agency's next flagship x-ray telescope, scheduled for launch in the 2030s. Its 2.5-m diameter mirror will be segmented and comprise more than 600 individual Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) grazing-incidence-angle imagers, called mirror modules. Arranged in concentric annuli and following a Wolter-Schwartzschild design, the mirror modules are made of several tens of primary-secondary mirror pairs, each mirror made of mono-crystalline silicon, coated to increase the collective area of the system, and shaped to bring the incoming photons to a common focus 12 m away. Aiming to deliver a half-energy width of 5", and an effective area of about 1.4 m2 at 1 keV, the Athena mirror requires several hundred m2 of super-polished surfaces with a roughness of about 0.3 nm and a thickness of just 110 μm. SPO, using the highest-grade double-side polished 300 mm wafers commercially available, were invented for this purpose and have been consistently developed over the last several years to enable next-generation x-ray telescopes like Athena. SPO makes it possible to manufacture cost-effective, high-resolution, large-area x-ray optics by using all the advantages that mono-crystalline silicon and the mass production processes of the semiconductor industry provide. Ahead of important programmatic milestones for Athena, we present the status of the technology, and illustrate not only recent x-ray results but also the progress made on the environmental testing, manufacturing and assembly aspects of the technology.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of SPIE : Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray |
Editors | Jan-Willem A. den Herder, Shouleh Nikzad, Kazuhiro Nakazawa |
Number of pages | 10 |
Volume | 12181 |
Publisher | SPIE - International Society for Optical Engineering |
Publication date | 2022 |
Article number | 121810U |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781510653436 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Event | Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray - Montréal, Canada Duration: 17 Jul 2022 → 22 Jul 2022 https://spie.org/as/conferencedetails/space-telescopes-and-instrumentation-uv-to-gamma?SSO=1 |
Conference
Conference | Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray |
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Country/Territory | Canada |
City | Montréal |
Period | 17/07/2022 → 22/07/2022 |
Internet address |
Series | Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering |
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Volume | 12181 |
ISSN | 0277-786X |
Keywords
- ARCUS
- ATHENA
- Pore optics
- Silicon
- SPO
- Stack
- Wafer
- X-ray astronomy
- X-ray optics
- X-ray telescopes