Related papers: The TRILL project: increasing the technological re…
Hard X-/soft Gamma-ray astronomy is a key field for the study of important astrophysical phenomena such as the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational waves, gamma-ray bursts, black holes physics and many more. However, the spatial…
In astrophysics, several key questions in the hard X soft Gamma-ray range (above 100 keV) require sensitivity and angular resolution that are hardly achievable with current technologies. Therefore, a new kind of instrument able to focus…
Laue lenses are an emerging technology that will enhance gamma-ray telescope sensitivity by one to two orders of magnitude in selected energy bands of the \sim 100 keV to \sim 1.5 MeV range. This optic would be particularly well adapted to…
A breakthrough in the sensitivity level of the hard X-/gamma-ray telescopes, which today are based on detectors that view the sky through (or not) coded masks, is expected when focusing optics will be available also in this energy range.…
We report on recent progress in the development of Laue lenses for applications in hard X/soft gamma-ray astronomy. Here we focus on the realization of a sector of such a lens made of 11 bent Germanium crystals and describe the…
The history of X-ray astronomy has shown that any advancement in our knowledge of the X-ray sky is strictly related to an increase in instrument sensitivity. At energies above 60 keV, there are interesting prospects for greatly improving…
Laue lenses constitute a promising option for concentrating soft gamma rays with a large collection area and reasonable focal lengths. In astronomy they could lead to increased telescope sensitivity by one to two orders of magnitude, in…
The study of the celestial phenomena in the hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray band(20 keV--1 MeV) is very intriguing but also very difficult to be performed with the needed sensitivity. In this review I will discuss the astrophysical importance of…
We present the status of the laue project devoted to develop a technology for building a 20 meter long focal length Laue lens for hard x-/soft gamma-ray astronomy (80 - 600 keV). The Laue lens is composed of bent crystals of Gallium…
This paper summarizes the development of a successful project, LAUE, supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and devoted to the development of long focal length (up to 100 m) Laue lenses for hard X--/soft gamma--ray astronomy (80-600…
Laue lenses are an emerging technology based on diffraction in crystals that allows the concentration of soft gamma rays. This kind of optics that works in the 100 keV - 1.5 MeV band can be used to realize an high-sensitivity and…
Hard X / soft gamma-ray polarimetric analysis can be performed efficiently by the study of Compton scattering anisotropy in a detector composed of fine pixels. But in the energy range above 100 keV where sources flux are extremely weak and…
A new concept for an astronomical telescope in the MeV energy band is presented. The concept builds on Bragg diffraction in crystals, which has been discussed in the past, but so far a design with good sensitivity over a wide energy range…
We present the LAUE project devoted to develop an advanced technology for building a high focal length Laue lens for soft gamma--ray astronomy (80-600 keV). The final goal is to develop a focusing optics that can improve the current…
The concept of a gamma-ray telescope based on a Laue lens offers the possibility to increase the sensitivity by more than an order of magnitude with respect to existing instruments. Laue lenses have been developed by our collaboration for…
We report on new results on the development activity of broad band Laue lenses for hard X-/gamma-ray astronomy (70/100-600 keV). After the development of a first prototype, whose performance was presented at the SPIE conference on…
The tunable gamma-ray lens has turned out to be a promising alternative to the classical fixed-energy Laue-lenses discussed in the past. We describe here our development work on a miniature pedestal with one-axis tilt adjustment. We also…
In the context of the LAUE project devoted to build a long focal length focusing optics for soft gamma-ray astronomy (70/100 keV to $>$600 keV), we present results of simulation of a Laue lens, based on bent crystals in different assembling…
In the context of the LAUE project devoted to build a long focal-length focusing optics for soft $\gamma$-ray astronomy (80 - 600 keV), we present the results of reflectivity measurements of bent crystals in different configurations,…
Thick diffractive optical elements offer a promising way to achieve focusing or imaging at a resolution approaching 1 nm for X-ray wavelengths shorter than about 0.1 nm. Efficient focusing requires that these are fabricated with structures…