Merging technologies: light-weight, high-throughput full-shell optics for x-ray imaging
X-ray optics are an essential component of nearly all future x-ray astronomy missions. Nickel electroforming of full shell optics is well established and several existing X-ray astronomy missions have used the technique to fabricate Wolter mirror modules. Our innovative approach merges current electroform technology with lower density materials, replacing much of the electroformed nickel with ceramic material which has higher stiffness, higher hardness and lower mass when compared with current electroformed nickel large shell optics. This will lead to future cost-effective missions with large effective area and lightweight optics. Below we describe our approach and present our most recent results.
Authors
- Sanjay Sampath (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9804-4647)
- Suzanne Romaine (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0746-9704)
- Stephen D. Bongiorno (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0901-2097)
- Srikanth Panini Singam (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6682-4841)
- Amy Meekham
- Chet O. Speegle
- R. Bruni
- David Banks (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4575-504X)
- Nicholas E. Thomas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0411-4606)
- Christopher Jensen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7459-1841)
- David Smith (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0856-7953)
- Jae Sub Hong
- Martin Elvis
- Joseph Cerafice
Institutions
- Marshall Space Flight Center (US)
- ReliaCoat Technologies (United States) (US)
- Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US)
Publication Details
- Published
- 2025-09-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3064584
- Primary Topic
- Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00