SUPERFLAT PCP Process development for manufacture of flat X-ray mirrors

The procurement will take the form of a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) that is expected to start on 13 January 2022 and end in March 2025 at the latest. The PCP will award R&D services contracts to a number of R&D providers in parallel to compare competing alternative solutions. This will be done in a phased approach with a framework agreement that covers 3 R&D phases (solution design, prototyping, pilot deployments made available to end users from the research communities supported by the buyers group) with intermediate evaluations after each phase that will progressively select the best competing solutions that will be offered a specific contract for the next phase. Testing of the prototypes is expected to take place at one of the buyer's premises by experts and end-users and in this way the PCP will provide a first customer test reference to participating R&D providers. This PCP will develop flat X-ray mirrors with optical apertures in excess of 500 mm long and 30 mm wide; slope and figure errors below 50 nanoradians and 1 nm respectively; with sub 0.1 nm roughness. The objective is to improve the quality of X-ray mirrors in response to the evolving needs of accelerator-based X-ray light sources. The initiative is driven in particular by the construction and upgrade of many European user facilities to provide ultra-low emittance X-ray beams for scientists and engineers working in applications addressing many of the global challenges targeted by the Horizon Europe program of the European Commission. To harness their full potential, these facilities require reflective optics of unprecedented quality. The technical challenges include the implementation of reliable and repeatable surface processing tools coupled with accurate metrology.