A MICROALIGNMENT SYSTEM FOR HIGH-PRECISION POSITIONING OF COLLIMATING PINHOLES

A complete micropositioning unit based on high precision, manually controlled X-Y-Z translators, related metrology system, and sighting microscope is described. It has been specifically developed for the alignment of collimating pinholes (5-10 mum diam) on cryogenic x-ray detectors, 10-50 mum in size, deposited both on transparent and opaque substrates. The main characteristics of this flexible and convenient system are the capability to handle a complete test fixture ready for further measurements at cryogenic temperature, coupled with the possibility to verify the precision attained. Such microalignment equipment will find application in optical/UV/x-ray photon counting experiments, whenever a highly collimated illumination is required or in any test involving precision positioning of small experimental units onto microdevices or detectors.