A thermal stress test of the depth-graded Pt/C reflectors used in the ASTRO-H Hard X-ray Telescope (HXT)

The ASTRO-H Hard X-ray Telescope (HXT) to cover hard X-rays up to 80 keV is thin-foil, multi-nested conical optics with depth-graded Pt/C multilayer. The reflectors are made of heat-formed aluminum substrate of the thickness gauged of 200 μm of the alloy 5052, followed by epoxy replication on Pt/C-sputtered smooth Pyrex cylindrical mandrels to acquire the X-ray reflective surface. The epoxy layer is 20 μm depth. In this paper, we report a thermal stress test of the reflectors of the HXT. The reflectors can experience in various temperature environment either in ground or in space. The temperature range can be as wide as several tens degrees in space dependently on the thermal design of the telescope system. We kept the reflectors in the three different temperatures at -5, 50 and 60 degrees, respectively, for a week. It is found that the surface of the reflectors at 60 degrees or higher temperature were significantly changed. The change appears as wrinkles with a typical scale length of a few tens micron meters. It is noticed that the scale length is equivalent to the depth of the epoxy layer, suggesting the existence of the epoxy layer causes the change in the scale length. No changes on the surface were observed from the -5 and 50 degree samples. No change on X-ray reflectivity was also detected from them.