X-ray imagery of the solar corona with arcsecond-level angular resolution is a key to understand various activities of hot plasmas in the corona. We report our development activities of precision Wolter mirrors for future soft X-ray imaging observations of the Sun. The Wolter mirrors under development are fabricated by direct polishing of glass-ceramic substrates. We fabricated an engineering Wolter mirror of 3-m focal length whose mirror area was 40 mm x 50 mm (along optical-axis and cylindrical directions, respectively) for each of the parabola and hyperbola sections using EEM (Elastic Emission Machining) precision polishing technology. X-ray imaging performance of the mirror was then evaluated with 8-keV parallel X-rays at SPring-8/BL29XUL. For the mirror area whose tilt up to >6 degrees along the cylindrical direction, the mirror showed imaging performance of ~0.25 arcsec FWHM (~0.55 arcsec HPD) with the scattering level ~1 × 10-4 of the PSF peak at 30-arcsec off-axis position.
Recently two-dimensional curved X-ray mirrors such as ellipsoidal and rotational Wolter mirrors have become widely used at synchrotron radiation facilities. Although microstitching interferometry (MSI) can measure surface figures, it takes a long time to obtain surface figure data because of the small field of view for a steeply curved surface. To improve productivity, we are developing a high throughput CGH (Computer Generated Hologram) interferometer system. To fit the CGH wavefront to the mirror surface, we use cylindrical wavefront CGHs for the interferometer system, as part of two-dimensional curved X-ray mirrors that can be approximated by a cylindrical surface. We will give a developing status of our CGH interferometer system.
We have developed an X-ray zoom condenser optical system using deformable mirrors that can adjust the beam size by deformation of their shape. The shapes of deformable mirrors are changed by a combination of mechanical and piezoelectric bending. Large deformations up to third order polynomials are achieved by mechanical bending. More precise shapes are achieved by piezoelectric bimorph mirror. However, because both ends of the mirror are mechanically clamped, capability of deformation by piezoelectric bending is lower than that of free-standing piezoelectric bimorph mirrors. So, we propose a bending method that tunes the mechanical bending conditions to intentionally leave the optimized shape error to be easily compensated by the piezoelectric bending process.
Production of over 600 ultra-smooth mirrors has been achieved by JTEC Corporation since 2006, which can be recognized as the evidence of large contribution to development of x-ray optics. To fabricate these mirrors, extremely high-accuracy surface shape measurement technology is necessary, therefore, RADSI, which is developed by Osaka University, has been applied to the manufacturing over the ages [1, 2]. In recent years, however, according to the growth of demand for a higher demagnification and a larger area light reception, surface curvature becomes steeper, thus, RADSI alone does not cover all mirrors. In order to resolve this matter, coordinate measuring machine (CMM) have been developed. In this study, the measurement performance of this CMM is discussed on the basis of the comparison with RADSI.
PZT-glued bimorph deformable mirrors are widely used in hard X-ray regimes; however, they haven’t been used in soft X-ray regimes because they are less compatible for usage under high vacuum. Therefore we have developed a glue-free bimorph deformable mirror, in which silver nano-particles were employed to bond PZT actuators to mirror substrates. However at long type, precise shape control had been hard since its mirror size was longer than PZT plate length whose gap between each PZT enevitablly existed. These gap area cannot be bended.
In this study, we developed deformable mirror using triangle shaped PZT which aim is to reduce gap effect even at long mirror. At the simulation result, the gap effect would be reduced to be under 0.01 nm even at maximum bending.
Also, vacuum tests of PZT glue-free bimolph mirror were also conducted. The final degree of vacuum obtained 9×10-8 Pa that was same as background level.
Various types of X-ray focusing optical systems are used at X-ray synchrotron radiation and free-electron laser facilities. However, these are designed for specific purposes and fixed optical parameters such as the numerical aperture (NA). Their lack of adaptability limits their application targets. In this research, we developed an X-ray adaptive focusing optical system which can control the beam size without moving the position of focus. The optical system consists of two deformable mirrors in one dimension. To vary the focused beam size, the NA is controlled by deforming the shape of the mirrors from concave to convex. The results will be presented along with the aberration properties estimated by ray trace and wave optical methods.
In synchrotron radiation facilities and X-ray free electron laser facilities, beam size adjustment depending on the experimental condition and the sample size is necessary. Various types of X-ray focusing optical systems are used for beam conditioning. However, they are specially designed for specific purposes and optical parameters such as numerical aperture (NA) and focal length are fixed. This lack of adaptability has limited application targets. In this research, we are developing X-ray adaptive focusing optical system which can control the beam size without moving the position of the focus. The optical system consists of two deformable mirrors in one dimension. In order to control the focused beam size, the NA can be controlled by deforming the mirror shapes from concave to convex. When we want to achieve large NA, deform the upstream mirror into convex shape and spread the beam. The downstream mirror receives X-ray with full aperture and X-ray is focused at focal point. When we want to achieve small NA, deform the upstream mirror into a concave shape and narrow down the reflection area of downstream mirror. NA becomes small because reflection area of downstream mirror becomes narrow. One dimensional focusing experiment of large NA adaptive optical system was performed at SPring-8 as a demonstration. A focused beam with an intensity profile having a full width at half maximum of 134 nm was achieved at 10 keV. This is close to ideal beam size. In my presentation, I will explain details of adaptive focusing optics and deformable mirrors.
We fabricate ultra-precision mirrors, Osaka Mirror, for synchrotron facilities. In order to fabricate them, it is very important to measure mirror surface precisely. In respect of the importance, we use two kinds of metrology, RADSI and MSI, developed by Osaka University. We have delivered more than 300 mirrors to synchrotron facilities all over the world since 2006 and our mirrors have produced excellent results to many researchers.
As the demand on one meter long mirrors has increased lately, we developed RADSI and MSI systems which are capable in precise measurement of such long mirrors.
A two-stage adaptive optical system using four piezoelectric deformable mirrors was constructed at SPring-8 to form
collimated X-ray beams. The deformable mirrors were finely deformed to target shapes (elliptical for the upstream mirrors
and parabolic for the downstream mirrors) based on shape data measured with the X-ray pencil beam scanning method.
Ultraprecise control of the mirror shapes enables us to obtain various collimated beams with different beam sizes of 314
μm (358 μm) and 127 μm (65 μm) in the horizontal (vertical) directions, respectively, with parallelism accuracy of ~ 1
μrad rms.
High resolution imagery of the solar X-ray corona provides a crucial key to understand dynamics and heating processes of plasma particles there. However, X-ray imagery of the Sun with sub-arcsecond resolution has yet to be conducted due to severe technical difficulty in fabricating precision Wolter mirrors. For future X-ray observations of the Sun's corona, we are attempting to realize precision Wolter mirrors with sub-arcsecond resolution by adopting advanced surface polish and metrology methods based on nano-technology to sector mirrors which consist of a portion of an entire annulus. Following fabrication of the first engineering mirror and subsequent evaluation on the X-ray focusing performance in 2013, the second engineering mirror was made with improvements in both precision polish and metrology introduced. Measurement of focusing performance on the second mirror at SPring-8 synchrotron facility with 8 keV X-rays has demonstrated that the FWHM size of the PSF core reached down to 0.2" while its HPD (Half Power Diameter) size remained at ~3" due to the presence of small-angle scatter just outside of the core. Also, there was notable difference in the focal length between sagittal and meridional focusing which could have been caused by an error in the sag in the meridional direction of <10 nm in the mirror area. Further improvements to overcome these issues have been planned for the next engineering mirror.
A one-dimensional two-stage focusing system using two deformable mirrors was constructed. To realize the precise
elliptical shapes, the mirror deformations were finely adjusted using the pencil-beam scan, which is a method of
wavefront measurement. X-rays of 10 keV energy were one-dimensionally focused to a full width at half maximum of
90 nm, which agrees well with the diffraction limit.
To construct an adaptive X-ray focusing optical system, we developed an ultraprecise deformable mirror that consists of a substrate, piezoelectric actuators, and 18 electrodes. A one-dimensional focusing test was performed at SPring-8 at 15 keV. The mirror deformation was roughly adjusted by applying voltages determined by a deformation test with a Fizeau interferometer. The shape was then finely corrected based on the shape determined by the pencil-beam method and the phase retrieval method. A focused beam with a full width at half maximum of 120 nm was obtained.
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