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Completed TRL 2 (started at 1, targeting 2)
This effort focuses on the development of a novel normal-incidence, X-ray mirror. The first step is to demonstrate the feasibility of normal-incidence X-ray imaging at E~0.5 keV. While such mirrors exist in the FUV (E<0.1-0.15 keV), so far this approach has not been used at higher energies, possibly because the layers of the multilayer coating must be very thin. The team will try coating small glass samples (flat plates and off-the-shelf optical parabolic mirrors) with several types of multilayers using in-house ALD facilities. Apart from different materials, different relative thickness of the layers and different numbers of layers will be investigated. Reflectivity measurements with a monochromatic source, and approximate measurements of the width of the energy response using the continuum source, will then be performed. Angular resolution will be measured using in-house facilities and detectors by the end of the FY. Additionally, a mission study will be done at Wallops MPL in the CubeSat group..
The goal is to explore the possibility of building a normal-incidence X-ray mirror for E~0.5 keV using a multilayer coating. Such a mirror would reflect in a very narrow energy interval, enabling soft X-ray imaging spectroscopy with high energy (few eV) and angular (few arcsec) resolution simultaneously, though for only one energy band at a time. The technology could be used to build an inexpensive large-area X-ray mirror to image the OVII line emission from very faint halos of warm circumgalactic gas, which are likely to be the reservoir of missing baryons in the nearby universe
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