Comprehensive characterization and simulation of the point spread function of lobster eye X-ray micro pore optics

Lobster eye micro pore optics has been extensively researched, developed, and experimented with over the past few decades since its proposal by Angel in 1979. The lobster eye X-ray telescope represents the next generation of X-ray time-domain astronomy. This study presents a novel semi-analytical numerical model for simulating and studying the optical performance of micro pore X-ray optics based on geometric physical models, channel errors, and Fresnel reflectance. The numerical method accurately and rapidly models the X-ray point-spread function through millions of square microchannels. Soft X-ray testing validates the semi-analytical numerical model, which simulates common channel errors in lobster eye optics manufacturing. The X-ray results demonstrated that tilt and shear channel errors significantly impacted the point spread function, which is consistent with simulation outcomes and has a significant guiding value for the subsequent process improvement.