PHOTONIS Micro Pore Optic A Micro Pore Optic consists of millions of square channels arranged in a well defined order. The surfaces inside the square channels have a near perfect flatness and a very low roughness. X-ray and UV photons can be focussed, concentrated or collimated by virtue of total external reflection at grazing angle inside the micro pore channels. The MPOs have been developed for X-ray imaging applications on interplanetary space missions. Compared to conventional X-ray optics MPOs are extremely compact and of ultra low mass. For terrestrial applications, the truly imaging capability of the novel MPO technology opens up new and unexplored potentials in the domain of X-ray, UV and EUV optical instrumentation.

Micro Pore Optic MPO 20 SQ 40x40 1 R750 AL Pore size (microns) 10 20 100 700 others tbd Radially packed channels Packing SQ: square packed SQR: radially packed Shape _: flat R: spherical C: cylindrical Radius of curvature (mm) 100 150 750 others tbd (R ≤ 70) Filming AL: Aluminium others tbd Square block 2nd draw MF Square packed channels PHOTONIS MPOs have been developed in close collaboration with the European Space Agency and the University of Leicester, UK, for the ESA Mission to Mercury, BepiColombo. The Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (MIXS) will be the first instrument for Space to be...