Kinematic alignment and bonding of silicon mirrors for high-resolution astronomical x-ray optics

Optics for the next generation’s high-resolution, high throughput x-ray telescope requires fabrication of wellformed lightweight mirror segments and their integration at arc-second precision. Recent advances in the fabrication of silicon mirrors developed at NASA/Goddard prompted us to develop a new method of mirror alignment and integration. In this method, stiff silicon mirrors are aligned quasi-kinematically and are bonded in an interlocking fashion to produce a “meta-shell” with large collective area. We address issues of aligning and bonding mirrors with this method and show a recent result of 4 seconds-of-arc (half power diameter) for a single pair of mirrors tested at soft x-rays.