Development of thermally formed glass optics for astronomical hard X-ray telescopes

The next major observational advance in hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray astrophys ics will come with the implementation of telescopes capable of focusing 10- 200 keV radiation. Focusing allows high signal-to-noise imaging and spectro scopic observations of many sources in this band for the first time. The re cent development of depth-graded multilayer coatings has made the design of telescopes for this bandpass practical, however the ability to manufacture inexpensive substrates with appropriate surface quality and figure to achi eve sub-arcminute performance has remained an elusive goal. In this paper, we report on new, thermally-formed glass micro-sheet optics capable of meet ing the requirements of the next-generation of astronomical hard X-ray tele scopes. (C) 2000 Optical Society of America.