RISE: robust iterative surface extension for sub-nanometer X-ray mirror fabrication.

Precision optics have been widely required in many advanced technological applications. X-ray mirrors, as an example, serve as the key optical components at synchrotron radiation and free electron laser facilities. They are rectangular silicon or glass substrates where a rectangular Clear Aperture (CA) needs to be polished to sub-nanometer Root Mean Squared (RMS) to keep the imaging capability of the incoming X-ray wavefront at the diffraction limit.

RIFTA: A Robust Iterative Fourier Transform-based dwell time Algorithm for ultra-precision ion beam figuring of synchrotron mirrors.

With the rapid evolution of synchrotron X-ray sources, the demand for high-precision X-ray mirrors has greatly increased. Single nanometer profile error is required to keep imaging capability at the diffraction limit. Ion Beam Figuring (IBF), as a highly deterministic surfacing technique, has been used for ultra-precision finishing of mirrors.

Two-dimensional stitching interferometry for self-calibration of high-order additive systematic errors.

Stitching interferometry is performed by collecting interferometric data from overlapped sub-apertures and stitching these data together to provide a full surface map. The propagation of the systematic error in the measured subset data is one of the main error sources in stitching interferometry for accurate reconstruction of the surface topography. In this work, we propose, using the redundancy of the captured subset data, two types of two-dimensional (2D) self-calibration stitching algorithms to overcome this issue by in situ estimating the repeatable high-order additive systematic errors, especially for the application of measuring X-ray mirrors.

Study on an effective one-dimensional ion-beam figuring method.

Ion-beam figuring (IBF) is a precise surface finishing technique used for the production of ultra-precision optical surfaces. In this study, we propose an effective one-dimensional IBF (1D-IBF) method approaching sub-nanometer root mean square (RMS) convergence for flat and spherical mirrors. Our process contains three key aspects.

Two-dimensional stitching interferometry based on tilt measurement.

In this paper, a two-dimensional stitching interferometry system using two tiltmeters is proposed. During the scanning and the measurement, one tiltmeter stays with the interferometer and the other one is attached to the translation stage where the surface under test is placed. The differences of the x- and y-tilt readings between these two tiltmeters are recorded as the relative tilt between interferometer and surface under test.