Grating-based at-wavelength metrology of hard x-ray reflective optics

A mean of characterizing the tangential shape of a hard x-ray mirror is presented. Derived from a group of methods operating under visible light, its application in the x-ray domain using an x-ray absorption grating allows recovery of the mirror shape with nanometer accuracy and submillimeter spatial resolution. The method works with incoherent light, does not require any a priori information about the mirror characteristics and allows shape reconstruction of x-ray reflective optics under thermal and mechanical working conditions.