Design and development of an x-ray interferometry testbed

Space Telescopes and Instrumentation: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, pp. 340

Abstract

X-ray Interferometry (XRI) has the potential for ultra-high resolution imaging. The XRI Willingale design allows a 1 meter baseline, having an angular resolution of ∼ 100 µas, interferometer to be compact enough to fit in a single spacecraft. The concept has been tested in visible wavelength (λ = 544 nm) however, it is yet to be tested with X-rays. Previously, a testbed for the Willingale X-ray interferometer instrument was proposed. As a first step towards the building the instrument, here we report on the design and current status of the XRI testbed to validate the Willingale concept at SRON. The facility will allow testing of a 1 cm baseline XRI at an X-ray energy of 1.25 keV. The testbed consists of a rotating anode X-ray source and a slit mechanism to generate a spatially coherent beam. Further, it has a 15 m long vacuum line including a vacuum chamber housing the optical bench to mount the optics. The optics consists of three flat mirrors and a slatted mirror fabricated at cosine B.V. The mirrors are placed at grazing incidence with alignment mechanisms. The interferences fringes will be detected by a CMOS camera. The development will serve as a platform for testing the current and future XRI designs.

Authors 11

1. Aditya Garde

   Delft University of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   Technische Univ. Delft (Netherlands)

2. Roland den Hartog Aachen Space Research Organisation Netherlands

   Space Research Organisation Netherlands

   Affiliation as printed

   Space Research Organisation Netherlands (Netherlands)

3. Matthijs Langelaar

   Delft University of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   Technische Univ. Delft (Netherlands)

4. Henk Hoevers Aachen Space Research Organization Netherlands (SRON)

   Space Research Organisation Netherlands

   Affiliation as printed

   Space Research Organization Netherlands (Netherlands)

5. Just L. Herder

   Delft University of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   Technische Univ. Delft (Netherlands)

6. Luc Voruz Aachen cosine B.V. (Netherlands)

   Cosine (Netherlands)

   Affiliation as printed

   cosine B.V. (Netherlands)

7. Adam Lassise Aachen cosine B.V. (Netherlands)

   Cosine (Netherlands)

   Affiliation as printed

   cosine B.V. (Netherlands)

8. Christian Körnig Aachen cosine B.V. (Netherlands)

   Cosine (Netherlands)

   Affiliation as printed

   cosine B.V. (Netherlands)

9. K. Ravensberg Aachen Space Research Organization Netherlands (SRON)

   Space Research Organisation Netherlands

   Affiliation as printed

   Space Research Organization Netherlands (Netherlands)

10. Nathan Ooijevaar

    Delft University of Technology

    Affiliation as printed

    Technische Univ. Delft (Netherlands)

11. Phil Uttley

    University of Amsterdam

    Affiliation as printed

    Univ. of Amsterdam (Netherlands)