Evolution of surface roughness in silicon X-ray mirrors exposed to a low-energy ion beam

The possibility of smoothening aspherical X-ray mirrors by irradiation of the surface with a low-energy ion beam is investigated. Nanofocusing being the primary application of these mirrors the ion beam conditions must be optimized to achieve a surface roughness of the order of 0.1–0.2 nm. To address this issue a first study was performed on silicon flat substrates etched using ion energies ranging from 400 to 1200 eV. A second study consisted of eroding the silicon surface while varying the ion grazing incidence angle between 10° and 90° for a fixed value of the ion energy. The surface topography of the samples was characterized at various scales using atomic force microscopy (probed area: 1−10 μm2), interferential optical microscopy (probed area: 1 mm2) and X-ray scattering (probed area: 100 mm2). Finally, a study by AFM of the evolution of the surface finish level of a silicon mirror after ion erosion at various depth values up to 10 μm allowed a trade off to be found between total etch time and the finish quality level in view of profiling a highly aspherically shaped mirror starting from a flat surface.