Reflectometer end station for synchrotron calibrations of Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility flight optics and for spectrometric research applications

Abstract

Preparations have been underway to construct and test a facility for grazing incidence reflectance calibrations of flat mirrors at the National Synchrotron Light Source. The purpose is to conduct calibrations on witness flats to the coating process of the flight mirrors for NASA’s Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF). The x-ray energy range required is 50 eV–12 keV. Three monochromatic beamlines (X8C, X8A, U3A) will provide energy tunability over this entire range. The goal is to calibrate the AXAF flight mirrors with uncertainties approaching 1%. A portable end station with a precision-positioning reflectometer has been developed for this work. We have resolved the vacuum cleanliness requirements to preserve the coating integrity of the flats with the strict grazing-angle certainty requirements placed on the rotational control system of the reflectometer. A precision positioning table permits alignment of the system to the synchrotron beam to within 10 arcsec; the reflectometer’s rotational control system can then produce grazing angle accuracy to within less than 2 arcsec, provided that the electron orbit is stable. At 10–12 keV, this degree of angular accuracy is necessary to achieve the calibration accuracy required for AXAF. However the most important energy regions for the synchrotron calibration are in the 2000–3200 eV range, where the M-edge absorption features of the coating element, iridium, appear, and the 300–700 eV range of the Ir N edges. The detail versus energy exhibited in these features cannot be traced adequately without a tunable energy source, which necessitates a synchrotron for this work. We present the mechanical designs, motion control systems, detection and measurement capabilities, and selected procedures for our measurements, as well as reflectance data.