Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Brookover, W. J..
The flight of a multilayer-coated mirror on a sounding rocket experiment on March 17, 1988 which was used to obtain photometric images of the sun just prior to solar eclipse is discussed. The rocket payload and the choice of passband are described. The design of the multilayer, the fabrication of the mirror, and the reflectance measurements are addressed.
Techniques for polishing figured X-ray optics by a lacquer-coating process are described. This acrylic lacquer coating has been applied with an optical quality of an eighth-wave in red light and very effectively covers surface roughness with spatial wavelengths less than about 0.2 mm. Tungsten films have been deposited on the lacquer coatings to provide highly efficient X-ray reflectivity.
The design, fabrication, and performance of optics for X-ray astronomy and laboratory applications are described and illustrated with diagrams, drawings, graphs, photographs, and sample images. Particular attention is given to the Wolter I telescope developed for spectroscopic observation of 8-30-A cosmic X-ray sources from a rocketborne X-ray Objective Grating Spectrometer; this instrument employs three nested paraboloid-hyperboloid mirrors of 5083 Al alloy, figured by diamond turning and covered with a thin coating of acrylic lacquer prior to deposition of a 40-nm-thick layer of Sn. In calibration tests at NASA Marshall, the FWHM of the line-spread function at 1.33 nm was found to be 240 microns, corresponding to 21 arcsec. Also presented are the results of reflectivity measurements on C and W multilayers sputtered on Si and fusion glass substrates.
This paper describes a large grazing incidence X-ray telescope that is being prepared for use in a spectrometer for X-ray astronomical observations. The telescope is figured by diamond turning and polished by applying an acrylic lacquer that is overcoated by a thin film of tungsten to provide high X-ray reflectivity. The current status of our research in multilayer deposition is presented and some astronomical applications of multilayer mirrors are described.