The ATHENA mission concept, now called ATHENA+, continues to be refined to address important questions in modern astrophysics. Previous studies have established that the requirement for effective area can be achieved using a combination of bi-layer coatings and/or simple graded multilayers. We find that further coating developments can improve on the baseline specifications and present here preliminary results on the optimization of coating design based on the new specifications of the ATHENA+ mission. The performances of several material combinations are investigated with the goal of maximizing the telescope effective area within the energy envelope of the mission and simulation of mirror performance is carried out.

Date Published: 26 September 2013
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8861, Optics for EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Astronomy VI, 886112 (26 September 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2024471

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8861:
Optics for EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Astronomy VI
Stephen L. O'Dell; Giovanni Pareschi, Editor(s)