Marcos Bavdaz

European Space Agency | ESA · Future Missions Preparation Office (SRE-F)

The BEaTriX (Beam Expander Testing X-ray) facility has completed the commissioning phase. This unique compact facility – that occupies an area of 8 x 14 m2 - provides a large (170 mm × 60 mm) collimated (< 2.5 arcsec) monochromatic beam at the energy of 4.51 keV. Its concept is based on the combination of a microfocus X-ray source, a parabolic mirr...

The mirror assembly of the ESA New - Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics (New-ATHENA) will be the largest X-ray optics ever built. Indeed, its unprecedented size, mass and focal length create great difficulties for the ground calibration. The VERT-X project aims at developing an innovative calibration facility which will be able to acco...

At the PANTER X-ray test facility of the Max-Planck-Institute for extraterrestrial Physics, X-ray optics for future missions are developed, tested, and calibrated. For the ESA mission NewATHENA many campaigns to test individual Silicon Pore Optic (SPO) mirror modules have been performed to monitor the different aspects of the performance improvemen...

The re-formulation phase of the next generation X-ray observatory ATHENA (Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics) – now NewATHENA - is being utilised for further improvements of the optics technology. The Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) remains the technology of choice, since it uniquely combines a low mass, large effective area, and good angula...

BEaTriX (Beam Expander Testing X-ray facility) is the new facility available at the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico Brera (Merate, Italy) for the calibration of X-ray optics. Specifically designed to measure the point spread function (PSF) and the effective area (EA) of the mirror modules (MM) of the ATHENA X-ray telescope at their production rate, B...

The ESA Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics (ATHENA) will be the largest X-ray optics ever built. The ground calibration of its mirror assembly raises significant difficulties due to its unprecedented size, mass and focal length. The VERT-X project aims at developing an innovative calibration system which will be able to accomplish this...

The ATHENA (Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics) mission is the current 2nd ‘Large’ mission (L2) in the ESA Cosmic Vision programme currently. It is currently at Phase B1 but the mission concept will now enter a reformulation phase that will follow a design-to-cost approach. This paper describes the main technologies behind its referenc...

The BEaTriX (Beam Expander Testing X-ray) facility, now operational at INAF-Brera Astronomical Observatory, will represent a cornerstone in the acceptance roadmap of Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) mirror modules, and will so contribute to the final angular resolution of the ATHENA X-ray telescope. By expansion and collimation of a microfocus X-ray sourc...

Long mirrors coated with thin films are used for a wide range of applications, e.g., focusing or collimating high-energy optics. Focusing of incident x-ray radiation is one of the major applications for high-energy astronomical telescopes, and collimation of divergent x-ray sources is used for experimental setups to confine or expand x-ray radiatio...

BEaTriX (Beam Expander Testing X-ray) is the compact (18m × 9m) X-ray facility being implemented at INAF for the acceptance tests of the ATHENA Silicon Pore Optics Mirror Modules (MM) working at the two energies of 1.49 and 4.51 keV. It adopts an innovative design based on a collimating mirror and Bragg crystals in proper configuration to provide a...

The BEaTriX (Beam Expander Testing X-ray) facility is now operative at the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico Brera (Merate, Italy). This facility has been specifically designed and built for the X-ray acceptance tests (PSF and Effective Area) of the ATHENA Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) Mirror Modules (MM). The unique setup creates a parallel, monochromatic...

It has been known for some time that sputtered low-density coatings deposited under vacuum (e.g. carbon or B4C), applied on top of high-density metallic coatings, can enhance the reflectivity in the soft X-ray band (below ~5 keV). In the last years, we experimented with novel carbonated coatings obtained by dip-liquid deposition, in which a thin fi...

The next generation X-ray observatory ATHENA (Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics) requires an optics with unprecedented performance. It is the combination of low mass, large effective area and good angular resolution that is the challenge of the X-ray optics of such a mission. ATHENA is the second Large Class mission in the Science Pro...

Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) are the technology selected for the assembly of the mirror module of the ATHENA X-ray telescope. An SPO mirror module consists of a quadruple stack of etched and wedged silicon wafers, in order to create a stiff and lightweight structure, able to reproduce in each pore the Wolter-I geometry required to image X-rays on the...

Just like in any other X-ray telescope, stray light is expected to be a potential issue for the ATHENA X-ray telescope, with a significant impact on the scientific goals. The most prominent cause of stray light in Wolter-I type optics is represented by rays that did not undergo double reflection and were reflected only singly, on either the parabol...

ESA’s Athena mission will use Silicon Pore Optics, in which the optics assembly consists of pairs of mirror plates stacked into mirror modules. This paper presents a study of the angular resolution of Athena, using several can- didate variants of mirror curvature and wedging. Results were achieved by ray-tracing these variants of Athena’s optics wi...

The Beam Expander Testing X-ray facility (BEaTriX) is a unique X-ray apparatus now operated at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera (OAB), in Merate, Italy. It has been specifically designed to measure the point spread function (PSF) and the effective area (EA) of mirror modules (MM) of the Advanced Telesc...

Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) uses commercially available monocrystalline double-sided super-polished silicon wafers as a basis to produce mirrors that form lightweight high-resolution X-ray optics. The technology has been invented by cosine Measurement Systems and the European Space Agency (ESA) and developed together with scientific and industrial pa...

The technology development activity (TDA) of the additively manufactured (AM) Optical Bench (OB) for the ATHENA space telescope started in 2017. Near-net-shape manufacturing is considered as an option by ESA and the activity is divided in several tasks addressing manufacturing and characterization. These tasks were performed serially, separated by...

With the large-class science mission ATHENA, the European Space Agency (ESA) aims at exploring the hot and energetic universe with advanced X-Ray technology. As a central component of the telescope, hundreds of silicon pore optic (SPO) modules will be assembled in an optical bench with a diameter of about 2.5 m. Several approaches are under investi...

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 tw...

Silicon direct bonding is a manufacturing process that is used in the fabrication of electronic, optical and mechanical microsystems. The chemical bonds are providing an intimate surface contact and strong structural stiffness that is for this reason also suitable for large assemblies. Together with the knowledge of the surface properties and of X-...

Silicon direct bonding is a manufacturing process used in the fabrication of electronic, optical and mechanical microsystems. Chemical bonds are providing an intimate surface contact and strong structural stiffness that is, for this reason, also suitable for large assemblies. Based on the knowledge of the surface properties and of X-ray optics, we...

The Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics (ATHENA) will observe "the hot and energetic universe," which was determined as one of the most urgent scientific topics for a major future space mission by The European Space Agency (ESA). One of its three main components is the optical bench, a monolithic titanium structure that accommodates 678...

The construction of BEaTriX, the Beam Expander Testing X-ray facility, is underway at INAF-OAB (Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera). This laboratory-based X-ray source was designed to generate a broad (170 mm x 60 mm), uniform, and collimated X-ray beam, with a residual divergence of 1.5 arcsec HEW at either 1.49 keV and 4.51 keV. The main scientifi...

The Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics (ATHENA) will observe 'the hot and energetic universe', which was determined one of the most urgent scientific topics for a major future space mission by The European Space Agency (ESA). One of its three main components is the optical bench, a monolithic titanium structure that accommodates 678 mi...

Abstract: The assembling of space optical devices working in X-ray or UV-optic regimes can only be validated in similar to working vacuum conditions. The intention of the work is to develop an in vacuum assembling technique able to align and robustly bond optical components required for space missions. In order to prove the concept, we adapted the...

Mission studies and technology preparation for the ATHENA (Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics) [1- 5] mission are continuing to progress. The X-ray optics of this future space observatory are based on the Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) technology [6-58], and is being evolved in a joint effort by industry, research institutions and ESA. The...

The ATHENA (Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics) X-ray observatory is an ESA-selected L2 class mission. In the proposed configuration, the optical assembly has a diameter of 2.2 m with an effective area of 1.4 m 2 at 1 keV, 0.25 m 2 at 6 keV, and requires an angular resolution of 5 arcsec. To meet the requirements of effective area and...

The development of the X-ray optics for ATHENA (Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics)[1-4], the selected second large class mission in the ESA Science Programme, is progressing further, in parallel with the payload preparation and the system level studies. The optics technology is based on the Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) [5-48], which util...