Measurement and analysis of active synchrotron mirrors under operating conditions

At the Diamond Light Source, in situ slope error measurements using the pencil-beam method have enabled X-ray mirror surfaces to be examined in their beamline environment. A surface corrugation common to several bimorph mirrors and the removal of that corrugation by repolishing were both confirmed using this method. In the same way, mirrors curved in a controlled way with bending actuators and sag compensators could also be optimized. Fits to the elastic bending of ideal beams using the Euler–Bernoulli model have been performed on the slope errors of a mechanically bent mirror in order to distinguish bender curvatures from gravitational distortion and to calculate the compensating force that most reduces the latter effect. A successful improvement of the sag compensation mechanism of a vertically focusing mirror was also achieved, aided by a previously tested method for optimizing the settings of a mirror's actuators using pencil-beam scans.