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

Abstract

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.