NEUTRON AND SOFT-X-RAY MULTILAYERED MIRRORS DEPOSITED BY TRIODE SPUTTERING USING AN AUTOMATIC ACCURATE THICKNESS MONITORING TECHNIQUE

High reflectivity neutron and X-ray multilayered mirrors require perfe ctly smooth, sharp interfaces, uniform layer thicknesses and densities and a high stack regularity. This can be achieved using a low energy triode sputtering unit equipped with three 10 x 30 cm(2) targets and a n accurate thickness monitoring system which is based on the dependenc e of the deposition rate on the target current. Thicknesses can be con trolled with an accuracy of better than 1 Angstrom and reproducibility is better than 1%. Therefore experimental neutron and X-ray specular reflection profiles of multilayered mirrors are in perfect agreement w ith the theoretical profiles, indicating a high stack regularity. This system is successful in producing high reflectivity soft X-ray mirror s in the 100-1000 eV range, as well as high quality periodic monochrom ators for unpolarized and polarized neutron optics. Moreover this tech nique is also appropriate for producing high reflectivity aperiodic st acks called neutron supermirrors.