Characterization of silicon pore optics for the NewAthena X-ray observatory in the PTB laboratory at BESSY II.

The New Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics (NewAthena) will be the largest space-based X-ray observatory ever built. It will have an effective area above 1.1 m at 1 keV, which corresponds to a polished mirror surface of about 300 m due to the grazing incidence.

Design and modeling of a Laue lens for radiation therapy with hard x-ray photons.

We have designed and modeled a novel optical system composed of a Laue lens coupled to an x-ray tube that produces a focused beam in an energy range near 100 keV (= 12.4 picometer). One application of this system is radiation therapy where it could enable treatment units that are considerably simpler and lower in cost than present technologies relying on linear accelerators.

Investigation of boron carbide and iridium thin films, an enabling technology for future x-ray telescopes.

We present an experimental examination of iridium and boron carbide thin-film coatings for the purpose of fabricating x-ray optics. We use a combination of x-ray reflectometry and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to model the structure, composition, density, thickness, and micro-roughness of the thin films. We demonstrate in our analyses how the two characterization techniques are complementary, and from this we derive that an overlayer originating from atmospheric contamination with a thickness between 1.