Publication Date:
2020-01-23
Description:
The Lynx mission concept, under development ahead of the 2020 Astrophysics Decadal Review, includes the Lynx X-ray Microcalorimeter (LXM) as one of its primary instruments. The LXM uses a microcalorimeter array at the focus of a high-throughput soft x-ray telescope to enable high-resolution nondispersive spectroscopy in the soft x-ray waveband (0.2 to 15 keV) with exquisite angular resolution. Similar to other x-ray microcalorimeters, the LXM uses a set of blocking filters mounted within the dewar that pass the photons of interest (x-rays) while attenuating the out-of-band long-wavelength radiation. Such filters have been successfully used on previous orbital and suborbital instruments; however, the Lynx science objectives, which emphasize observations in the soft x-ray band (〈1keV), pose more challenging requirements on the set of LXM blocking filters. We present an introduction to the design of the LXM optical/IR blocking filters and discuss recent advances in filter capability targeted at LXM. In addition, we briefly describe the external filters and the modulated x-ray sources to be used for onboard detector calibration.
Keywords:
Optics; Instrumentation and Photography
Type:
GSFC-E-DAA-TN75246
,
Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems (ISSN 2329-4124) (e-ISSN 2329-4221); 5; 2; 021020
Format:
application/pdf
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