Large-area thin aluminum filter design, handling, and testing

The process of observing the Sun in the x-ray and extreme UV (XUV), as we are now doing with the TRACE telescope, requires blocking the tremendous amount of visible and RI light that dominates the flux from the sun. If it is not blocked, the energy will swamp the desired spectrum and cause thermal problems inside the telescope. The most effective approach removing the energy is by filtering the incoming light. One of the best materials for eliminating the undesirable wavelengths is aluminum, which is semi- transparent to x-ray and XUV, but blocks most light with wavelength redward of 850 angstrom. Unfortunately the aluminum must be extremely must be extremely thin, < 1600 angstrom thick, to provide the necessary XUV transparency. To overcome the structural problem of supporting large areas of extremely thin aluminum, the aluminum film is bonded on a nickel mesh.© (1998) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.