A method of constructing a large aperture grazing incidence X-ray telescope utilizing the Kirkpatrick-Baez (K-B) geometry is described. Two crossed stacks of flat, wedged Silicon plates comprise a single optical unit which provides focusing to a angular resolution limit set by the plate separation within the stacks. If high precision Silicon wafers are used and the focal length is large, an angular resolution of a few arc seconds is achievable. As a refinement an angular resolution at the limit imposed by the K-B geometry could be met if the plates were very slightly curved to the correct parabolic profile along the axial direction. A tessellation of a large number of identical or nearly identical stacks over a spherical aperture plane can provide a very large collecting area and high angular resolution suitable for the International X-ray Observatory (IXO) or similar X-ray astronomy applications. The optical design operates in a similar way to the lobster eye geometry and unlimited extension of the aperture coverage (tessellation) can provide a very large field of view suitable for all-sky monitoring.

Date Published: 31 August 2009
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 7437, Optics for EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Astronomy IV, 74370B (31 August 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.826225

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7437:
Optics for EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Astronomy IV
Stephen L. O'Dell; Giovanni Pareschi, Editor(s)