We have built a 45-cm long x-ray deformable mirror of super-polished single-crystal silicon that has 45 actuators along the tangential axis. After assembly the surface height error was 19 nm rms. With use of high-precision visible-light metrology and precise control algorithms, we have actuated the x-ray deformable mirror and flattened its entire surface to 0.7 nm rms controllable figure error. This is, to our knowledge, the first sub-nanometer active flattening of a substrate longer than 15 cm.
X-ray mirrors with high focusing performances are in use in both mirror modules for X-ray telescopes and in synchrotron and FEL (Free Electron Laser) beamlines. A degradation of the focus sharpness arises in general from geometrical deformations and surface roughness, the former usually described by geometrical optics and the latter by physical optics. In general, technological developments are aimed at a very tight focusing, which requires the mirror profile to comply with the nominal shape as much as possible and to keep the roughness at a negligible level. However, a deliberate deformation of the mirror can be made to endow the focus with a desired size and distribution, via piezo actuators as done at the EIS-TIMEX beamline of FERMI@Elettra. The resulting profile can be characterized with a Long Trace Profilometer and correlated with the expected optical quality via a wavefront propagation code. However, if the roughness contribution can be neglected, the computation can be performed via a ray-tracing routine, and, under opportune assumptions, the focal spot profile (the Point Spread Function, PSF) can even be predicted analytically. The advantage of this approach is that the analytical relation can be reversed; i.e, from the desired PSF the required mirror profile can be computed easily, thereby avoiding the use of complex and time-consuming numerical codes. The method can also be suited in the case of spatially inhomogeneous beam intensities, as commonly experienced at Synchrotrons and FELs. In this work we expose the analytical method and the application to the beam shaping problem.
We report on hard X-ray observations of X-ray Nova Velorum 1993 (GRS 1009-45) performed with the SIGMA coded mask X-ray telescope in January 1994. The source was clearly detected with a flux of about 60 mCrab in the 40-150 keV energy band during the two observations with a hard spectrum (alpha ~ - 1.9) extending up to ~ 150 keV. These observations confirm the duration of the activity of the source in hard X-rays over 100 days after the first maximum and suggest a spectral hardening which has already been observed in Nova Muscae. These and other characteristics found in these observations strengthen the case for this Nova to be a black hole candidate similar to Nova Muscae.
Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGADs) are silicon sensors with a built-in charge multiplication layer providing a gain of typically 10 to 50. Due to the combination of high signal-to-noise ratio and short rise time, thin LGADs provide good time resolutions. LGADs with an active thickness of about 45 $mu$m were produced at CNM Barcelona. Their gains and time resolutions were studied in beam tests for two different multiplication layer implantation doses, as well as before and after irradiation with neutrons up to $10^{15}$ n$_{eq}$/cm$^2$. The gain showed the expected decrease at a fixed voltage for a lower initial implantation dose, as well as for a higher fluence due to effective acceptor removal in the multiplication layer. Time resolutions below 30 ps were obtained at the highest applied voltages for both implantation doses before irradiation. Also after an intermediate fluence of $3times10^{14}$ n$_{eq}$/cm$^2$, similar values were measured since a higher applicable reverse bias voltage could recover most of the pre-irradiation gain. At $10^{15}$ n$_{eq}$/cm$^2$, the time resolution at the maximum applicable voltage of 620 V during the beam test was measured to be 57 ps since the voltage stability was not good enough to compensate for the gain layer loss. The time resolutions were found to follow approximately a universal function of gain for all implantation doses and fluences.
In order to evaluate the potential of MEMS deformable mirrors for open-loop applications, a complete calibration process was performed on a 1024-actuator mirror. The mirror must be perfectly calibrated to obtain deterministic membrane deflection. The actuators stroke-voltage relationship and the effect of the non- additivity of the influence functions are studied and finally integrated in an open-loop control process. This experiment aimed at minimizing the residual error obtained in open-loop control.
The color X-ray camera (SLcam) is a full-field single photon imager. As stand-alone camera, it is applicable for energy and space-resolved X-ray detection measurements. The exchangeable poly-capillary optics in front of a beryllium entrance window conducts X-ray photons from the probe to distinguished energy dispersive pixels on a pnCCD. The dedicated software enables the acquisition and the online processing of the spectral data for all 69696 pixels, leading to a real-time visualization of the element distribution in a sample. No scanning system is employed. A first elemental composition image of the sample is visible within minutes while statistics is improving in the course of time. Straight poly-capillary optics allows for 1:1 imaging with a space resolution of 50 um and no limited depth of sharpness, ideal to map uneven objects. Using conically shaped optics, a magnification of 6 times was achieved with a space resolution of 10 um. We present a measurement with a laboratory source showing the camera capability to perform fast full-field X-ray Fluorescence (FF-XRF) imaging with an easy, portable and modular setup.