Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) is a new X-ray optics technology under development in Europe, forming the ESA baseline technology for the International X-ray Observatory candidate mission studied jointly by ESA, NASA, and JAXA. With its matrix-like structure, made of monocrystalline-bonded Silicon mirrors, it can achieve the required angular resolution and low mass density required for future large X-ray observatories. Glass-based Micro Pore Optics (MPO) achieve modest angular resolution compared to SPO, but are even lighter and have achieved sufficient maturity level to be accepted as the X-ray optic technology for instruments on board the Bepi-Colombo mission, due to visit the planet Mercury. Opportunities for technology transfer to ground-based applications include material science, security and scanning equipment, and medical diagnostics. Pore X-ray optics combine high performance with modularity and economic industrial production processes, ensuring cost effective implementation.

The Solar X-ray Imager (SXI) was launched 23 July 2001 on NOAA's GOES-12 satellite and completed post-launch testing 20 December 2001. Beginning 22 January 2003 it has provided nearly uninterrupted, full-disk, soft X-ray solar images, with a continuous frame rate significantly exceeding that for previous similar instruments. The SXI provides images with a 1 min cadence and a single-image (adjustable) dynamic range near 100. A set of metallic thin-film filters provides temperature discrimination in the 0.6 -6.0 nm bandpass. The spatial resolution of approximately 10 arcsec FWHM is sampled with 5 arcsec pixels. Three instrument degradations have occurred since launch, two affecting entrance filters and one affecting the detector high-voltage system. This work presents the SXI instrument, its operations, and its data processing, including the impacts of the instrument degradations. A companion paper (Pizzo et al., this issue) presents SXI performance prior to an instrument degradation that occurred on 5 November 2003 and thus applies to more than 420000 soft X-ray images of the Sun.

The Solar X-ray Imager (SXI) was launched on 23 July 2001 on NOAA's GOES-12 satellite and completed post-launch testing on 20 December 2001. It was brought into operations on 21 January 2003. This paper documents SXI performance and calibrations prior to an instrument degradation that occurred on 5 November 2003 and thus covers more than 420 000 soft X-ray images of the Sun. This paper details component-level as well as full-system calibrations characterizing the spatial and spectral performance of the instrument, including the grazing-incidence mirror, filters, and the properties of the MCP-intensified CCD detector system. Routine image corrections are also described. These include background (dark current) subtraction, flat-fielding, off-band light-leak correction, and image pointing and timing considerations. In addition, a signal-to-noise analysis is presented. The information contained in this study is intended to enable researchers to conduct quantitative analysis of GOES-12 SXI images.

We report a remotely mediated and fast responsive plasmonic-magnetic nanorod array with extremely large variability in optical appearance (up to 100 nm shifts in scattering maxima) and concurrently for multiple wavelengths in a broad range from UV-vis to near-infrared (at 450, 550, and 670 nm) with an external magnetic field with variable direction. The observed phenomenon demonstrates a rapid, wide-range response controlled via a noninvasive remote stimulus. The remotely controlled system suggested here is a magnetic field-directed assembly of an ordered monolayer array of unipolar oriented magnetic-plasmonic nickel-gold nanorods flexibly hinged to a sticky substrate. The unique geometry of the mobile nanorod array allows for the instant alteration of the surface plasmon polariton modes in the gold segment of the controllably tilting nanorods. This design demonstrates the utility of hybrid bimetallic nanoparticles and gives a novel approach to the design of fast-acting, remotely controlled color-changing nanomaterials for sensing and interfacial transport.

Silicon pore optics is a technology developed to enable future large area X-ray telescopes, such as the International Xray Observatory (IXO), a candidate mission in the ESA Space Science Programme 'Cosmic Visions 2015-2025'. IXO uses nested mirrors in Wolter-I configuration to focus grazing incidence X-ray photons on a detector plane. The IXO mirrors will have to meet stringent performance requirements including an effective area of ~3 m 2 at 1.25 keV and ~1 m 2 at 6 keV and angular resolution better than 5 arc seconds. To achieve the collecting area requires a total polished mirror surface area of ~1300 m 2 with a surface roughness better than 0.5 nm rms. By using commercial high-quality 12" silicon wafers which are diced, structured, wedged, coated, bent and stacked the stringent performance requirements of IXO can be attained without any costly polishing steps. Two of these stacks are then assembled into a co-aligned mirror module, which is a complete X-ray imaging system. Included in the mirror module are the isostatic mounting points, providing a reliable interface to the telescope. Hundreds of such mirror modules are finally integrated into petals, and mounted onto the spacecraft to form an X-ray optic of four meters in diameter. In this paper we will present the silicon pore optics assembly process and latest X-ray results. The required metrology is described in detail and experimental methods are shown, which allow to assess the quality of the HPOs during production and to predict the performance when measured in synchrotron radiation facilities.