Lobster eye X-ray optics fabricated with MEMS technologies

Lobster eye optics are expected as a wide-field telescope and are suitable for future X-ray sky surveys and monitoring missions. We have developed ultra-lightweight X-ray optics with MEMS technologies and applied the same way to the fabrication of lobster eye optics. A large number of slits with 20 micro-meters width were formed by an etching process in a 4-inch Si wafer with 300 micro-meters thickness. To collect X-rays on a focal plane, the wafer was plastic-deformed into a spherical shape with a curvature radius of 1000 mm. Two deformed wafers were assembled in such a way as to orthogonally arrange the slits of each wafer. Then, we completed samples of lobster eye optics with MEMS technologies.