Broad Bandwidth Beam Benders and Short Focal Length Aperture Optics

Although there have been many advances in optics for low energy x-rays, (<=20keV), all optics for x-rays suffer from combinations of small effective apertures, excessively long goal lengths, small bandwidth, or the inability to bend the x-rays through large angles. Physitron proposes to design, fabricate and test x-ray bending, focusing and collimating optics which will have large effective apertures, short focal lengths in focusing systems, large transmission bandwidths,and the ability to bend even 8-10 keV x-rays through large angles with high transmission efficiency. These optics will be fabricated from laminar microchannel sheets stacked to form the large aperture. Microchannel of this type have been made possible by recent Physitron work in neutron optics. Microchannel optics of this type are distinct from those using capillary fibers because they allow better control of x-ray transmission, larger apertures, and much easier fabrication. These optics will have applications in x-ray lasers and other high energy-directed energy systems, x-ray lithographic systems, and underground nuclear testing, aboveground nuclear testing, synchron radiation sources, plasma diagnostics for fusion, materials science applications, and uses in scientific instruments such as x-ray diffractometry and x-ray spectrometry.