Astrophysics (Index)About

grazing incidence optics

(GIO)
(optics that avoid large changes to the angle of rays)

Grazing incidence optics (sometimes abbreviated GIO) is optics that reflects EMR such that a ray's direction-change is small; the angle between the incoming EMR's path and the reflecting surface (grazing angle) is small, e.g., less than 2°. This is common for X-ray telescopes, because the X-rays can penetrate many materials but can be reflected if the grazing angle is small, which is a severe restriction on the design of X-ray telescopes. Wolter telescopes, of which there are a few kinds, are designed to use only grazing incident optics. A consequence of this design- restriction is that the telescopes are relatively long: both Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton have telescopes on the order of 10 meters in length.


(optics,telescopes)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolter_telescope#X-ray_mirror_telescope_design
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_incidence_(optics)#Grazing_angle_or_glancing_angle
https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/observatories/technology/xray_telescopes2.html
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001A%26A...372.1088C/abstract

Referenced by pages:
NICER
NuSTAR
Wolter telescope

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