Yoshiharu Namba

Regular subwavelength surface structures induced by femtosecond laser pulses on stainless steel.

In this research, we studied the formation of laser-induced periodic surface structures on the stainless steel surface using femtosecond laser pulses. A 780 nm wavelength femtosecond laser, through a 0.2 mm pinhole aperture for truncating fluence distribution, was focused onto the stainless steel surface. Under different experimental condition, low-spatial-frequency laser-induced periodic surface structures with a period of 526 nm and high-spatial-frequency laser-induced periodic surface structures with a period of 310 nm were obtained. The mechanism of the formation of laser-induced periodic surface structures on the stainless steel surface is discussed.

Ultraprecision Grinding of Optical Glasses to Produce Super-Smooth Surfaces

Summary The typical 11 kinds of optical glasses have been ground by the ultra-precision surface grinder having a glass-ceramic spindle of extremely-low thermal expansion with various cup-typed resinoid-bonded diamond wheels of #200-#3000 in grain size. All kinds of glasses can be ground in the ductile mode and the surface does not contain a micro-crack under the surface. The surface roughness is related with grain size, feed per wheel revolution and glass material, not with depth of cut. Super-smooth surfaces less than 0.2nm rms. 2nm Rmax have been obtained by the ultra-precision grinding.

Supermirror hard-x-ray telescope

The practical use of a grazing x-ray telescope is demonstrated for hard-x-ray imaging as hard as 40 keV by means of a depth-graded d-spacing multilayer, a so-called supermirror. Platinum-carbon multilayers of 26 layer pairs in three blocks with a different periodic length d of 3-5 nm were designed to enhance the reflectivity in the energy range from 24 to 36 keV at a grazing angle of 0.3 deg. The multilayers were deposited on thin-replica-foil mirrors by a magnetron dc sputtering system. The reflectivity was measured to be 25%-30% in this energy range; 20 mirror shells thus deposited were assembled into the tightly nested grazing-incidence telescope. The focused hard-x-ray image was observed with a newly developed position-sensitive CdZnTe solid-state detector. The angular resolution of this telescope was found to be 2.4 arc min in the half-power diameter.

Compact soft x-ray transmission microscopy with sub-50 nm spatial resolution

In this paper, the development of compact transmission soft x-ray microscopy (XM) with sub-50 nm spatial resolution for biomedical applications is described. The compact transmission soft x-ray microscope operates at lambda = 2.88 nm (430 eV) and is based on a tabletop regenerative x-ray source in combination with a tandem ellipsoidal condenser mirror for sample illumination, an objective micro zone plate and a thinned back-illuminated charge coupled device to record an x-ray image. The new, compact x-ray microscope system requires the fabrication of proper x-ray optical devices in order to obtain high-quality images. For an application-oriented microscope, the alignment procedure is fully automated via computer control through a graphic user interface. In imaging studies using our compact XM system, a gold mesh image was obtained with 45 nm resolution at x580 magnification and 1 min exposure. Images of a biological sample (Coscinodiscus oculoides) were recorded.

Float polishing of optical materials

The float-polishing technique has been studied to determine its suitability for producing supersmooth surfaces on optical materials, yielding a roughness of <2 A rms. An attempt was made to polish six different materials including fused quartz, Zerodur, and sapphire. The low surface roughness was achieved on fused quartz, Zerodur, and Corning experimental glass-ceramic materials, and a surface roughness of <1 A rms was obtained on O-cut single-crystal sapphire. Presumably, similar surface finishes can also be obtained on CerVit and ULE quartz, which could not be polished satisfactorily in this set of experiments because of a mismatch between sample mounting and machine configuration.

Ultraprecision Surface Grinding of Chemical Vapor Deposited Silicon Carbide for X-Ray Mirrors Using Resinoid-Bonded Diamond Wheels

Abstract Chemical Vapor Deposited Silicon Carbide (CVD-SiC) on sintered silicon carbide has been ground by the ultraprecision surface grinder having a glass-ceramic spindle of extremely-low thermal expansion with various cup-type resinoid-bonded diamond wheels for getting high-brightness synchrotron radiation mirrors. The surface roughness depends upon the average grain size of a wheel, feed per wheel revolution and degree of cutting edge wear. A very smooth surface of 0.266nm rms was obtained by ultraprecision grinding without polishing. A high specular reflectivity of 88.7% at 0.834nm in wavelength was obtained on the ground surface at the grazing incident angle of 0.7–0.95 degree, parallel to the grinding direction.

Characterization of the supermirror hard-x-ray telescope for the InFOCμS balloon experiment

A hard-x-ray telescope is successfully produced for balloon observations by making use of depth-graded multilayers, or so-called supermirrors, with platinum-carbon (Pt/C) layer pairs. It consists of four quadrant units assembled in an optical configuration with a diameter of 40 cm and a focal length of 8 m. Each quadrant is made of 510 pieces of coaxially and confocally aligned supermirrors that significantly enhance the sensitivity in an energy range of 20-40 keV. The configuration of the telescope is similar to the x-ray telescope onboard Astro-E, but with a longer focal length. The reflectivity of supermirrors is of the order of 40% in the energy range concerned at a grazing angle of 0.2 deg. The effective area of a fully assembled telescope is 50 cm2 at 30 keV. The angular resolution is 2.37 arc min at half-power diameter 8.0 keV. The field of view is 12.6 arc min in the hard-x-ray region, depending somewhat on x-ray energies. We discuss these characteristics, taking into account the figure errors of reflectors and their optical alignment in the telescope assembly. This hard-x-ray telescope is unanimously afforded in the International Focusing Optics Collaboration for muCrab Sensitivity balloon experiment.

Hard x-ray telescope to be onboard ASTRO-H

The new Japanese X-ray Astronomy satellite, ASTRO-H will carry two identical hard X-ray telescopes (HXTs), which cover 5 to 80 keV. The HXT mirrors employ tightly-nested, conically-approximated thin-foil Wolter-I optics, and the mirror surfaces are coated with Pt/C depth-graded multilayers to enhance hard X-ray effective area by means of Bragg reflection. The HXT comprises foils 450 mm in diamter and 200 mm in length, with a focal length of 12 m. To obtain a large effective area, 213 aluminum foils 0.2 mm in thickness are tightly nested confocally. The effective area is expected to be ~ 310 cm2 at 30 keV and the image quality to be ~1.′7 in half-power diameter.

Ultra-Precision Float Polishing Machine

Abstract A new ultra-precision float polishing machine which can cut a tin lap of 460 mm in diameter very flat with a sharp diamond tool has been developed for polishing samples up to 180 mm in diameter. The conventionally pitch-polished BK-7 glass, Zerodur, Cer Vit and fused silica of 100 mm in diameter were polished to the flatness of λ/20 = 0.03 μm and the surface roughness of 1-2 angstroms rms, measured with stylus, optical and X-ray scattering methods.

The NeXT x-ray telescope system: status update

Japans NeXT mission has been approved for the Phase-A in 2007. At present NeXT is in the process of transition to the Phase-B. One of the unique feature of the mission is an imaging spectroscopy in unprecedentedly wide energy region from 0.5 to 80 keV. The X-Ray Telescope (XRT) system covers the energy region by means of grazing incidence reflective optics. International collaboration has been formed for the project and design and basic study have been carried out so far. Current baseline specification includes two hard X-ray telescopes which are combined with the Hard X-ray Imager (Si + CdTe pixel or strip) and cover 5 to 80 keV, and two soft X-ray telescopes which cover 0.3 to about 20 keV, one combined with a high resolution X-ray micro-calorimeter and the other with an X-ray CCD. Both of hard and soft X-ray mirrors employ same optical design; tightly-nested, conically-approximated thin-foil Wolter-I optics. The mission requirements for XRT system have been identified as 300 cm2 at 30 keV for the hard X-ray telescope in total and 400 cm2 at 6 keV for the soft X-ray telescope per unit. The requirement on the point spread function is 1.7 arcmin in HPD, as well as the goal being 1.2 arcmin. Based on the current level of technology all the mission requirements are expected to be satisfied.