Fabrication status and expected performance of the inner-core X-ray optic for BabyIAXO

Abstract

BabyIAXO, a pathfinder for the International Axion Observatory (IAXO), is designed to demonstrate all key technologies at scale while achieving an improvement in sensitivity over the recent CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) experiment by approximately a factor of five. Such improvement is enabled by the X-ray optics, which allow for maintaining a high signal-to-noise ratio at the detector despite a cross-sectional area of the magnetic bore being over 250 times larger than that of CAST. The optic employs a hybrid design consisting of co-aligned inner core and outer corona optics that share a common optical axis and vacuum vessel but differ in focal length and manufacturing approach. Both are segmented glass optics, with the inner core fabricated from thermally slumped borosilicate glass and the outer corona from cold-slumped Corning Willow glass. To fabricate the inner-core optic, leveraging techniques developed for NuSTAR and HEFT optics, we reoptimized and streamlined the thermal-forming procedure. The quality of free-standing glass substrates was characterized by laser metrology, X-ray reflectometry, and atomic force microscopy. We developed a cutting technique that produces smooth edges at the micron scale. We used flat stacks of glass-epoxy-graphite layers to evaluate the performance of the epoxy bondline. The optic is expected to achieve an on-axis point spread function (PSF) with a half-power diameter (HPD) of < 90", enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio by more than 55 times.