Mass production of silicon pore optics for IXO and ATHENA

Eric Wille; Kotska Wallace; Marcos Bavdaz

doi:10.1117/12.892080

6 October 2011 Mass production of silicon pore optics for IXO and ATHENA

Eric Wille, Kotska Wallace, Marcos Bavdaz

Proceedings Volume 8147, Optics for EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Astronomy V; 81470E (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.892080
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2011, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) provide high angular resolution with low area density as required for the International X-ray Observatory (IXO) or the Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics (ATHENA). The baseline for both telescopes consists of populating the mirror assembly with hundreds of SPO mirror modules. During the development of the process steps of the SPO technology, specific requirements of a future mass production have been considered right from the beginning. The manufacturing methods heavily utilise off-the-shelf equipment from the semiconductor industry, robotic automation and parallel processing. This allows to upscale the present production flow in a cost effective way, to produce hundreds of mirror modules per year. Considering manufacturing predictions based on the current technology status, we present an analysis of the time and resources required for a future flight programme. This includes the full production process starting with Si wafers up to the integration of the mirror modules. We present the times required for the individual process steps and identify the equipment required to produce several mirror modules per day. A preliminary timeline for building and commissioning the required infrastructure, and for flight model production of about 500 (ATHENA) and 2000 (IXO) mirror modules, is presented.

Citation Download Citation

Eric Wille, Kotska Wallace, and Marcos Bavdaz "Mass production of silicon pore optics for IXO and ATHENA", Proc. SPIE 8147, Optics for EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Astronomy V, 81470E (6 October 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.892080

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