Development of a facility for high accuracy and precision characterization of collimator Micro-Pore Optics

The Large Area Detector is one of the narrow field of view instruments of the eXTP space astronomy mission, operating in the 2-30 keV range. Thanks to an array of 640 large-area linear Silicon Drift Detectors, it achieves a huge active area (> 3 m2 at 8 keV), and therefore cannot rely on grazing-incidence X-ray optics to its field of view. Instead, it features an array of lightweight collimator plates matched to the sensors, based on the technology of lead-glass Micro-Pore Optics. We developed a facility for the study and characterization of collimator plates, capable of measuring their point-by-point angular response about various axes at several energies with 1 arcmin accuracy and < 1% uncertainty. The facility is completed by a software pipeline that manages the measurements without constant user supervision, thus allowing thorough tests of the MPO samples.