Diffractive-optic telescope for x-ray astronomy

The design for a light-weight x-ray astronomical telescope that uses a diffractive optical element is described and simulated. The design provides tunable narrow-band imaging with a spatial resolution of several arc seconds over wide fields of view, greater than 10 arc minutes. The x-ray energy range from 0.56 keV to 1.86 keV, containing astrophysically interesting lines of O, Ne, Fe, Mg and Si, would be covered with high throughput through the use of a blazed diffractive optic. State-of-the-art grating technology is adequate for the optic design and a variety of x-ray imaging detectors could be used for the readout.