Development of a beamline system for characterization of X-ray and neutron optics

In this thesis, I present a beamline system designed and built at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) to measure the reflectivity and resolution of small diameter multilayer coated Wolter optics. These optics, used for imaging of x-rays and neutrons, have numerous applications in areas such as medicine, fusion research and planetary science. The beamline consists of a divergent x-ray source, an energy sensitive detector, and a set of precise, computer controlled motorized stages for alignment. A dedicated software package was developed to interface with the detector and stages using the Python programming language. The beamline was used to measure the reflectivity and spatial resolution of two x-ray optics recently fabricated at the CfA. These results are presented and compared with theoretical models for reflectivity from a multilayer surface.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Ames, Andrew O. (Andrew Owen)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Suzanne Romaine and Marshall Bautz.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/105627

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/105627