The European XFEL generates extremely short and intense x-ray laser pulses, with high coherence and diffraction-limited divergence. It generates ultrashort x-ray ashes, 27000 times per second, with a brilliance that is a billion times higher than that of the best conventional x-ray radiation sources. Due to these extreme beam characteristics, the x-ray mirrors to transport and focus the beam need to be coated to protect them against beam damage. The surface quality of these mirrors before the coating is in the order of 2nm peak-to-valley and 200km radius on average. The ultra- at x-ray mirrors of ultimate precision are important in order to preserve the quality of the beam delivered to the experiments and the coating must not compromise the surface quality. This manuscript presents a preliminary study of the surface quality of 2 mirrors that will be part of the Optical Delay Line (ODL) before and after coating using Fizeau and White Light Interferometry.
To provide excellent conditions for the scientific user experiments at European XFEL, a good beam stability is essential. But to accomplish this task, it is needed to overcome some difficulties and challenges. Especially, the very long beamlines – up to about 1 km of photon distribution tunnels – of the hard x-ray beamlines are amplifying the effect of vibrations. Each small displacement of an optical component might result in a beam motion in the experimental end station of a non-neglectable order of magnitude and therefore disturbing or even making impossible the execution of the experiments. With increasing number and continuously improving beam quality since the start of user operation at EuXFEL, experiments are becoming more demanding and therefore vibration issues are more and more relevant. Different vibrations were reported from the scientific instruments, like occasionally occurring large horizontal beam motions of several hundred microns or shift of the beam position from week to week. These disturbances may require extra tuning time and lead to a loss of usable beamtime. Because they are not always present, it is very challenging to analyse the root causes. Different studies have been undertaken to determine the vibration at different beamline components and to identify possible sources. At the hard x-ray beamlines, SASE 1 and SASE 2, Laser Doppler Interferometers have been installed to observe the vibrations present at the x-ray mirrors and other optical components. With external excitation, sensitive resonance frequencies of the mirror chambers were studied in detail. Continuous monitoring with seismometers and microphones gives information about the basic background sound spectra and local noise sources.
The Materials Imaging and Dynamics (MID) station is located at the SASE2 undulator beamline of European XFEL and has become operational in 2019. The MID instrument operates in the medium to hard X-ray range (5 - 25 keV) and its scientific focus is on time-resolved coherent X-ray scattering and diffraction studies in materials science, with particular interest in ultrafast pump-probe experiments where the pump can be either X-rays, an optical laser beam or a pulsed magnetic field. The optical setup of the MID instrument includes two vertically offset mirrors equipped with cryogenic cooling. The top mirror will be employed for grazing incidence experiments on liquid surfaces, and the bottom mirror will be used to spatially overlap two split beams generated by a “split and delay” line. The mirrors are 500 mm long and are coated with boron carbide (B4C) and platinum (Pt) in two adjacent stripes. Deterministic mirror polishing is done to compensate the gravitational sag in order to achieve a perfectly flat mirror when it is installed. The requirements were very challenging for the surface shape and the needed ion-beam deterministic polishing, so also the coating process had to be performed and monitored with particular care. We present the metrological characterization of the mirrors, carried out before and after the B4C and Pt coating, and performed with a large aperture Fizeau interferometer. The measurements were made at European XFEL’s metrology lab in grazing incidence setup and with the mirrors facing sideways. Analyzing these data, we can deduce many important parameters, as the peak-to-valley of the central profile, the bending radius, and the gravity compensation profile. We show metrological results before and after coating and give details about the calculations performed to decide whether the mirror shapes are still complying with specifications after all these processes.
For new light sources, like X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs), highly precise diffraction-limited optics are needed, which are leading to ambitious requirements for the X-ray mirrors used in those facilities. For appropriate beam focusing and alignment, a control of the shape on the single-nanometre precision level is necessary, which generates high demands on the manufacturers and on the metrology. To face these questions, the project MooNpics – Metrology On One-Nanometer-Precise Optics was established. With a European-wide round-robin test, the goal is to push the frontiers in mirror metrology in Europe to single-nanometre figure error precision.
Within the MooNpics project, a special mirror holder for long X-ray mirrors was developed that provides reproducible and well defined mounting conditions in each participating laboratory. The goal is to understand mechanical and stress influences and hence to improve mounting methods. Before the actual start of the roundrobin, measurements were done to investigate the influence of the mirror mounting. A procedure was developed to reduce the induced stresses and increase the reproducibility with regard to the planned round-robin.
The European XFEL generates extremely short and intense X-ray laser pulses, with high coherence and diffraction limited divergence. Due to these outstanding characteristics of the beam, ultra-flat X-ray mirrors of ultimate precision are needed to enable a wave front preserving transport of photons from the source to the experimental hall. One of the experimental stations already in operation is the SPB/SFX (Single Particles, Clusters and Biomolecules / Serial Femtosecond Crystallography) station. This instrument is dedicated to coherent diffraction imaging of single particles and structure determination with serial femtosecond crystallography. The instrument is also designed to investigate the structure of these systems as a function of time, using the short X-ray pulses. The optics used in the photon transport tunnels as well as in the experimental station need to fulfill really challenging specifications; therefore, they need to be inspected with metrology devices and methods of comparable precision. This paper presents the metrological characterization of the micron focusing mirrors for the SPB/SFX scientific instrument done with a large aperture Fizeau interferometer. The micron focusing system consists of 2 pairs of mirrors; each pair contains one flat and one elliptical mirror. One pair is vertically reflecting and the other pair is horizontally reflecting. The central profile specification for the mirrors is less than 2 nm peak-to-valley (P-V) figure error over the main surface shape. The measurements performed in our lab are all done in grazing incidence setup and with the mirrors facing side. Analyzing these data we can account many important parameters, as the peak-to-valley of the central profile, the radius, the gravity compensation profile and the ellipse parameters. The micron focusing mirrors have been recently installed in the corresponding chamber of the SPB/SFX Optics Hutch and they will be used very soon for the next User Experiments Run.
The European XFEL is a large facility under construction in Hamburg, Germany [1]. It will provide a transversally fully coherent X-ray radiation with outstanding characteristics: high repetition rate (up to 2700 pulses with a 0.6 milliseconds long pulse train at 10Hz), short wavelength (down to 0.05 nm), short pulse (in the femtoseconds scale) and high average brilliance (1.6x1025 photons / s / mm2 / mrad2 / 0.1% bandwidth). It will have initially three main beamlines, named SASE1, SASE2 and SASE3. The last one is considered a "soft X-ray" beamline, with energies that will span from 0.25 to 3 keV, delivering photon pulses to SQS (Small Quantum System) and SCS (Spectroscopy and Coherent Scattering) experiments. The optical transport of the almost diffraction- limited beam is done using 950 mm long mirrors, cooled with InGa eutectic bath and super-polished (50 nrad RMS slope error and less than 3 nm PV residual height error). A VLS-PG (Variable Line Spacing - Plane Grating) monochromator is installed to enhance the spectral coherence of the beam. The basic characteristics for the grating substrates are: 530 mm length, InGa eutectic bath cooled and ion-beam polished with gravity sag compensation. For the initial commissioning of the beamline, a shorter grating (150 mm long) will be prepared and installed. We recently received the 150 mm long grating and we present here its characterization performed using Fizeau Interferometry. The VLS parameters are especially investigated and characterized. This grating's study can give an interesting insight in the present status of European XFEL metrology, but also additional information for the future development and characterization of the final 530 mm long grating.
The European XFEL is a large-scale user facility under construction in Hamburg, Germany. It will provide a
transversally fully coherent X-ray radiation with outstanding characteristics: high repetition rate (up to 2700 pulses with
a 0.6 milliseconds long pulse train at 10Hz), short wavelength (down to 0.05 nm), short pulses (in the femtoseconds
scale) and high average brilliance (1.6x1025 photons / s / mm2 / mrad2/ 0.1% bandwidth)1. Due to the short wavelength
and high pulse energies, mirrors need to have a high-quality surface, have to be very long (1 m), and at the same time an
effective cooling system has to be implemented. Matching these tight specifications and assessing them with high precision
optical measurements is very challenging.
The mirrors go through a complicated and long process, starting from classical polishing to deterministic polishing,
ending with a special coating and a final metrology assessment inside their mechanical mounts just before the
installation. The installation itself is also difficult for such big mirrors and needs special care. In this contribution we will
explain how we implemented the installation process, how we used the metrology information to optimize the
installation procedure and we will show some preliminary results with the first mirrors installed in the European XFEL
beam transport.
All the major synchrotron radiation facilities around the world have recently started upgrade projects to go towards the
4th generation of x-ray sources, in the direction of fully "Diffraction Limited Storage Rings" (DLSRs) in order to
produce photon beams with better quality. Several Free Electron Lasers (FELs), also providing diffraction limited beam,
are operating and increasing their performances, while other ones are almost ready to be operational. To fully exploit the
ultimate source properties of these next-generation light sources, the quality requirements for x-ray optics have
significantly increased, especially for reflective optics like mirrors. To maintain the coherence of the beam, such optical
components will need to have shape accuracies in the nanometer regime over macroscopic length scales up to 1 meter. If
we consider the ratio between these two parameters, we can quantify how challenging is not only the manufacturing
process but also the characterization and measurement of such optics. We will outline such challenge taking some
experience from the example case of European XFEL.
The European XFEL will generate extremely short and intense X-ray laser pulses of high coherence and nearly diffraction-limited divergence. Guiding these X-rays beams over a distance of more than 1 km to the experiments requires an extreme precision in pointing stability of beamline components like mirrors and gratings and also a control of the divergence of the beam. The specifications of the X-ray mirrors that will be able to transport, distribute and focus the beam are quite challenging. The European XFEL mirrors for the beam transport are 950 mm long and the optical surface specifications are 2 nm Peak-To-Valley. Some of the mirrors will have bending capabilities in order to focus the beam in the right position and with nanometer accuracy. This is implemented using a mechanical bender that will ensure stability of the optics in the nanometer range and will also offer the possibility to correct for mechanical or temperature drifts.
We present here the characterization of a mechanical bender that was done using two instruments, a Large Aperture Fizeau interferometer and a system of three capacitive sensors. The bender is designed in a way that the mirror is hold with clamps on both ends and a symmetric torque is applied on the clamps, inducing a cylindrical shape on the mirror surface. Several long-term stability measurements were done, as well as the characterization of bending capabilities. The parameters retrieved from the measurements are the sagitta and therefore the radius of curvature for different bending positions. The behavior of the variation of the shape of the mirror was also studied. The information gathered from our measurements will be used to optimize the final design of the bender.
The European XFEL will generate extremely short and intense X-ray laser pulses of high coherence and nearly diffraction-limited divergence. Guiding these X-rays beams over a distance of more than 1 km to the experiments requires an extreme precision in pointing stability of the optical beamline components like mirrors and gratings and also a good control of the divergence of the beam. The specifications of the X-ray mirrors that will be used to transport, distribute and focus the beam are high demanding. It will be required for the reflecting surfaces to have a surface quality of better than 2 nm Peak-To-Valley over a 950-mm length: the ratio between these two parameters, on the order of 10-9, makes the requirements very challenging to be accomplished.
In order to account for the real shape of the mirrors and to assist the production with absolute metrology, it is proposed to use a Fizeau interferometer. Being the mirrors much bigger than the interferometer clear aperture, it is however needed to use an angled (“grazing incidence”) cavity setup to be able to measure the mirrors over their entire length. In using this setup, there are some open questions about the reproducibility of the method, the influence of the particular grazing angle that is used and the level of accuracy that could be expected with different averages.
We present a discussion about theory and practical implementation of “grazing incidence” interferometric measurements, with some examples of real measurements at European XFEL on the first beam distribution mirrors.
The European XFEL is a large facility under construction in Hamburg, Germany. It will provide a transversally fully coherent x-ray radiation with outstanding characteristics: high repetition rate (up to 2700 pulses with a 0.6 milliseconds long pulse train at 10Hz), short wavelength (down to 0.05 nm), short pulse (in the femtoseconds scale) and high average brilliance (1.61025 photons / s / mm2 / mrad2/ 0.1% bandwidth). Due to the very short wavelength and very high pulse energy, all the mirrors need to have high quality surface, to be very long, and at the same time to implement an effective cooling system. Matching these tight specifications and assessing them with high precision optical measurements is very challenging. In order to measure the mirrors and to characterize their interaction with the mechanical mounts, we equipped a Metrology Laboratory with a Large Aperture Fizeau. The system is a classical 100 mm diameter commercial Fizeau, with an additional expander providing a 300 mm diameter. Despite the commercial nature of the system, special care has been done in the polishing of the reference flats and in the expander quality. In this report, we show the preparation of the instrument, the calibration and the performance characterization, together with some preliminary results. We also describe the approach that we want to follow for the x-rays mirrors measurements. The final goal will be to characterize very long mirrors, almost 1 meter long, with nanometer accuracy.
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