An active piezoelectric plane X‐ray focusing mirror with a linearly changing thickness

X‐ray mirrors for synchrotron radiation are often bent into a curved figure and work under grazing‐incidence conditions due to the strong penetrating nature of X‐rays to most materials. Mirrors of different cross sections have been recommended to reduce the mirror's slope inaccuracy and clamping difficulty in order to overcome mechanical tolerances. With the development of hard X‐ray focusing, it is difficult to meet the needs of focusing mirrors with small slope error with the existing mirror processing technology. Deformable mirrors are adaptive optics that can produce a flexible surface figure. A method of using a deformable mirror as a phase compensator is described to enhance the focusing performance of an X‐ray mirror. This paper presents an active piezoelectric plane X‐ray focusing mirror with a linearly changing thickness that has the ability of phase compensation while focusing X‐rays. Benefiting from its special structural design, the mirror can realize flexible focusing at different focusing geometries using a single input driving voltage. A prototype was used to measure its performance under one‐dimension and two‐dimension conditions. The results prove that, even at a bending magnet beamline, the mirror can easily achieve a single‐micrometre focusing without a complicated bending mechanism or high‐precision surface processing. It is hoped that this kind of deformable mirror will have a wide and flexible application in the synchrotron radiation field. An active piezoelectric plane X‐ray focusing mirror with a linearly changing thickness is presented. Focusing performances of the prototype are measured and a single‐micrometre focusing result is achieved.