X-ray spectroscopy with elliptical crystals and face-on framing cameras

X-ray spectrometers using elliptically bent crystals have desirable properties for applications requiring broad spectral coverage, good spectral resolution, and minimized source broadening. Previous work used custom-positioned film or microchannel plate detectors. We find it is also useful and cost-effective to field elliptical crystals in existing snouts on the face-on gated microchannel plate framing cameras commonly used at many facilities. We numerically explored the full design space (spectral range and resolution) of elliptical crystals compatible with the new multipurpose spectrometer snout. We have tested at the Omega laser an elliptical rubidium acid phthalate crystal with 174 mm focal length, 0.9885 eccentricity, and 4.6° inclination, viewing from 1.0 to at least 1.7 keV with spectral resolution E/dE of 300–500. A slit (2×magnification) images 3 mm sources with 70 μm spatial resolution.