Development of a lightweight x-ray mirror using thin carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP)

We fabricated X-ray mirrors from carbon-fiber-reinforced-plastic (CFRP) with a tightly nested design for X-ray satellites. The mirror shape is Wolter type-I quadrant shell geometry with a diameter of 200 mm and a focal length of 12 m. The mirror substrates were successfully formed with a rms error of about 1 μm. Through a replication process, a smooth surface was obtained on the CFRP substrate. We are developing a positioning method of thin mirrors in a telescope housing. It is found that a piezo-linear motor is very useful to adjust the mirror position with accuracy of sub μm. The CFRP mirrors were evaluated by using 20 keV X-ray pencil beam at BL20B2 in SPring-8 synchrotron radiation facility. The HPD of the mirrors was estimated to be about 2.3 arc-minutes. The spread of X-ray image would be caused by small waviness on the mirror surface after replication.