Stress manipulated coating for figure reshape of light weight X-ray telescope mirrors

We present our idea to correct the surface profile of X-ray telescope mirrors by employing a spatially distributed variable stress coating. Future X-ray telescope missions require light weight optics with an angular resolution ≤. 1" . However, the typical desired thickness of a light weight mirror shell is ≤ 0.4mm, and to date such thin shelled mirrors that have been fabricated cannot meet the required figure accuracy. Therefore most the common approach is to modify the figure of the initially produced mirror shell. In this paper, we describe one such approach. Our approach uses a DC magnetron sputtering process with a variable electrical bias. The end result is a locally variable stress which has the potential to improve the figure of the initially fabricated thin . In this work we report out first results. These include: reproducibility, important technical details of the coating process, and the results of stability tests on several samples monitored. Further, as a proof of concept, we applied a coating with a modulated bias to demonstrate the feasibility to manipulate the surface profile.