Performance Testing of a Novel Off-plane Reflection Grating and Silicon Pore Optic Spectrograph at PANTER

TL;DR

This paper reports on the performance testing of a novel X-ray spectrograph combining off-plane reflection gratings and silicon pore optics, demonstrating active alignment and spectral overlap at PANTER.

Contribution

First active alignment of two off-plane gratings with silicon pore optics for X-ray spectroscopy, enabling improved spectral performance and future development.

Findings

Line spread functions measured for the spectrograph

Successful active alignment of gratings and SPO

Plans outlined for further development

Abstract

An X-ray spectrograph consisting of radially ruled off-plane reflection gratings and silicon pore optics was tested at the Max Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics PANTER X-ray test facility. The silicon pore optic (SPO) stack used is a test module for the Arcus small explorer mission, which will also feature aligned off-plane reflection gratings. This test is the first time two off-plane gratings were actively aligned to each other and with a SPO to produce an overlapped spectrum. The gratings were aligned using an active alignment module which allows for the independent manipulation of subsequent gratings to a reference grating in three degrees of freedom using picomotor actuators which are controllable external to the test chamber. We report the line spread functions of the spectrograph and the actively aligned gratings, and plans for future development.