Dr. Simon G. Alcock Profile

Dr. Simon G. Alcock

Senior Metrology Scientist at Diamond Light Source Ltd

SPIE Involvement:

Author

Publications (25)

Proceedings Article | 26 August 2024 Paper

Paper

Investigating mass reduction capabilities of additive manufacturing through the redesign of a space-based mirror

Rhys Tuck, Younes Chahid, Greg Lister, Katherine Morris, James Carruthers, Mat Beardsley, Michael Harris, Michal Matukiewicz, Simon Alcock, Ioana-Theodora Nistea, Carolyn Atkins

Proceedings Volume 13100, 131003U (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3019021

KEYWORDS: Design, Printing, Mirrors, Mirror surfaces, Optical surfaces, Diamond, Single point diamond turning, Interfaces, Objectives, Computer aided design

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Proceedings Article | 26 August 2024 Poster + Paper

Poster + Paper

Additive manufacturing in ceramics: targeting lightweight mirror applications in the visible, ultraviolet, and x-ray

Carolyn Atkins, Younes Chahid, Gregory Lister, Rhys Tuck, David Isherwood, Nan Yu, Rongyan Sun, Itsuki Noto, Kazuya Yamamura, Marta Civitani, Gabriele Vecchi, Giovanni Pareschi, Simon Alcock, Ioana-Theodora Nistea, Murilo Bazan Da Silva

Proceedings Volume 13100, 131003F (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3018631

KEYWORDS: Silicon carbide, Silica, Polishing, Optical surfaces, Silicon, Printing, Surface finishing, Prototyping, Additive manufacturing, 3D printing, Surface roughness, Ceramics, Optical fabrication

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Proceedings Article | 4 October 2023 Presentation + Paper

Presentation + Paper

Understanding the role of additive manufacturing in the development of astronomical hardware

Carolyn Atkins, Younes Chahid, James Wells, Marcell Westsik, Katherine Morris, Ciarán Breen, Alastair Macleod, Lawrence Bissell, William Cochrane, Richard Kotlewski, Scott McPhee, Robert Snell, Iain Todd, Mat Beardsley, Michael Harris, Misael Pimentel, Scott McKegney, Jonathan Orr, Simon Alcock, Ioana Theodora Nistea, Simone Cottarelli, Samuel Tammas-Williams

Proceedings Volume 12677, 126770L (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2677452

KEYWORDS: Design and modelling, Lightweight mirrors, Porosity, Astronomy, Aluminum, Single point diamond turning, Prototyping, Optics manufacturing, Additive manufacturing, 3D printing, Optomechanical components, Astronomical instrumentation engineering, Aluminum mirrors

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Proceedings Article | 4 October 2023 Presentation + Paper

Presentation + Paper

From design to evaluation of an additively manufactured, lightweight, deployable mirror for Earth observation

Marcell Westsik, James Wells, Younes Chahid, Katherine Morris, Maria Milanova, Mat Beardsley, Michael Harris, Lucas Ward, Simon Alcock, Ioana-Theodora Nistea, Simone Cottarelli, Samuel Tammas-Williams, Carolyn Atkins

Proceedings Volume 12677, 1267704 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2677303

KEYWORDS: Prototyping, Design and modelling, Single point diamond turning, Optical surfaces, Porosity, Simulations, Mirrors, Mirror surfaces, 3D printing, Additive manufacturing

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Proceedings Article | 3 October 2023 Open Access

Open Access

Presentation + Paper

Diamond-VeNOM: a high-speed slope profiler for characterizing x-ray mirrors

Ioana-Theodora Nistea, Simon Alcock, Murilo Bazan da Silva, K. Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 12695, 126950A (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2688134

KEYWORDS: Autocollimators, Metrology, Profilometers, X-ray optics

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Proceedings Article | 16 September 2019 Presentation + Paper

Presentation + Paper

Additively manufactured mirrors for CubeSats

Carolyn Atkins, William Brzozowski, Naomi Dobson, Maria Milanova, Stephen Todd, David Pearson, Cyril Bourgenot, David Brooks, Robert Snell, Wenjuan Sun, Peter Cooper, Simon Alcock, Ioana-Theodora Nistea

Proceedings Volume 11116, 1111616 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2528119

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Additive manufacturing, 3D printing, Prototyping, Metals, Space mirrors, Design for manufacturability, Manufacturing, Aluminum, Nickel

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Proceedings Article | 9 September 2019 Open Access

Open Access

Presentation + Paper

The Optical Metrology Laboratory at Diamond: pushing the limits of nano-metrology

Ioana-Theodora Nistea, Simon Alcock, Murilo Bazan da Silva, Kawal Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 11109, 1110906 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2529401

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Metrology, X-ray optics, Optical metrology, Diffraction gratings, Synchrotrons, Fizeau interferometers

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Proceedings Article | 9 September 2019 Open Access

Open Access

Presentation + Paper

Ion beam figuring and optical metrology system for synchrotron x-ray mirrors

Matthew Hand, Simon Alcock, Michael Hillman, Richard Littlewood, Simone Moriconi, Hongchang Wang, Kawal Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 11109, 111090A (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2528463

KEYWORDS: Ion beams, Ions, Ion beam finishing, Mirrors, Metrology, X-rays, X-ray optics, Synchrotrons, Optical metrology, Optics manufacturing

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Proceedings Article | 9 September 2019 Paper

Paper

First commissioning results of the KB mirrors at the SCS instrument of the European XFEL

G. Mercurio, C. Broers, R. Carley, J. T. Delitz, N. Gerasimova, L. Le Guyarder, L. Mercadier, A. Reich, J. Schlappa, M. Teichmann, A. Yaroslavtsev, M. Cascella, K. Setoodehnia, M. Schneider, B. Pfau, S. Eisebitt, V. Vozda, V. Hájková, L. Vyšín, T. Burian, J. Chalupský, L. Juha, S. G. Alcock, I. Nistea, D. La Civita, H. Sinn, M. Vannoni, A. Scherz

Proceedings Volume 11109, 111090F (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2530725

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, X-rays, Free electron lasers, Sensors, Computer programming, Diffraction gratings, Scattering, Spectroscopes, Metrology

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Proceedings Article | 9 September 2019 Presentation + Paper

Presentation + Paper

Lightweighting design optimisation for additively manufactured mirrors

Carolyn Atkins, William Brzozowski, Naomi Dobson, Maria Milanova, Stephen Todd, David Pearson, Cyril Bourgenot, David Brooks, Robert Snell, Wenjuan Sun, Peter Cooper, Simon Alcock, Ioana-Theodora Nistea

Proceedings Volume 11116, 1111617 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2528105

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Additive manufacturing, Design for manufacturability, 3D printing, Lightweight mirrors, Printing, Polishing, Finite element methods, Surface finishing

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Proceedings Article | 9 September 2019 Open Access

Open Access

Presentation + Paper

Controlling an active bimorph deformable mirror with sub-nanometre resolution

Ioana-Theodora Nistea, Simon Alcock, Vivek Badami, Riccardo Signorato, Kawal Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 11109, 111090E (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2529322

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Sensors, Metrology, Deformable mirrors, Power supplies, X-ray optics, Interferometry

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Proceedings Article | 10 July 2018 Presentation + Paper

Presentation + Paper

Topological design of lightweight additively manufactured mirrors for space

Carolyn Atkins, Charlotte Feldman, David Brooks, Stephen Watson, William Cochrane, Melanie Roulet, Emmanuel Hugot, Mat Beardsley, Michael Harris, Christopher Spindloe, Simon Alcock, Ioana-Theodora Nistea, Christian Morawe, François Perrin

Proceedings Volume 10706, 107060I (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2313353

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Polishing, Surface roughness, Additive manufacturing, Finite element methods, Space mirrors, Aluminum, Single point diamond turning, Lightweight mirrors, Error analysis, 3D printing

Read Abstract +

Additive manufacturing (AM), more commonly known as 3D printing, is a commercially established technology for rapid prototyping and fabrication of bespoke intricate parts. To date, research quality mirror prototypes are being trialled using additive manufacturing, where a high quality reflective surface is created in a post-processing step. One advantage of additive manufacturing for mirror fabrication is the ease to lightweight the structure: the design is no longer confined by traditional machining (mill, drill and lathe) and optimised/innovative structures can be used. The end applications of lightweight AM mirrors are broad; the motivation behind this research is low mass mirrors for space-based astronomical or Earth Observation imaging. An example of a potential application could be within nano-satellites, where volume and mass limits are critical. The research presented in this paper highlights the early stage experimental development in AM mirrors and the future innovative designs which could be applied using AM.

The surface roughness on a diamond-turned AM aluminium (AlSi₁₀Mg) mirror is presented which demonstrates the ability to achieve an average roughness of ~3.6nm root mean square (RMS) measured over a 3 x 3 grid. A Fourier transform of the roughness data is shown which deconvolves the roughness into contributions from the diamond-turning tooling and the AM build layers. In addition, two nickel phosphorus (NiP) coated AlSi₁₀Mg AM mirrors are compared in terms of surface form error; one mirror has a generic sandwich lightweight design at 44% the mass of a solid equivalent, prior to coating and the second mirror was lightweighted further using the finite element analysis tool topology optimisation. The surface form error indicates an improvement in peak-to-valley (PV) from 323nm to 204nm and in RMS from 83nm to 31nm for the generic and optimised lightweighting respectively while demonstrating a weight reduction between the samples of 18%. The paper concludes with a discussion of the breadth of AM design that could be applied to mirror lightweighting in the future, in particular, topology optimisation, tessellating polyhedrons and Voronoi cells are presented.

Proceedings Article | 8 September 2016 Open Access

Open Access

Presentation + Paper

X-ray beam expansion by the application of re-entrant surface profiles to deformable bimorph mirrors

John Sutter, Simon Alcock, Yogesh Kashyap, Ioana Nistea, Hongchang Wang, Kawal Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 9965, 99650E (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2239116

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, X-rays, Deformable mirrors, Surface finishing, Polishing, Surface finishing, Deformable mirrors, Electrodes, Diamond, Light sources, Speckle, Beam shaping

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Proceedings Article | 5 September 2014 Open Access

Open Access

Paper

Partial coherence and imperfect optics at a synchrotron radiation source modeled by wavefront propagation

David Laundy, Simon Alcock, Lucia Alianelli, John Sutter, Kawal J. Sawhney, Oleg Chubar

Proceedings Volume 9209, 920903 (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2062903

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Wavefronts, X-rays, Wave propagation, Optical components, Synchrotron radiation, Optical simulations, Electron beams, Light wave propagation, Light sources

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Proceedings Article | 5 September 2014 Open Access

Open Access

Paper

At-wavelength metrology of x-ray optics at Diamond Light Source

Hongchang Wang, Sebastien Berujon, John Sutter, Simon Alcock, Kawal Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 9206, 920608 (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2062828

KEYWORDS: X-rays, Mirrors, Wavefronts, Speckle, X-ray optics, Metrology, Near field optics, Sensors, Diamond, Light sources

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Proceedings Article | 5 September 2014 Open Access

Open Access

Paper

Structure in defocused beams of x-ray mirrors: causes and possible solutions

John Sutter, Simon Alcock, Fiona Rust, Hongchang Wang, Kawal Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 9208, 92080G (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2061941

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Electrodes, X-rays, Polishing, Sensors, Diamond, Geometrical optics, Optical testing, Light sources, Surface finishing

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Proceedings Article | 28 September 2011 Paper

Paper

A double multilayer monochromator for the B16 Test beamline at the Diamond Light Source

K. J. Sawhney, I. Dolbnya, S. Scott, M. Tiwari, G. Preece, S. Alcock, A. Malandain

Proceedings Volume 8139, 813908 (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.894920

KEYWORDS: Monochromators, Reflectivity, Multilayers, X-rays, Diamond, Light sources, Mirrors, X-ray optics, Crystals, Energy efficiency

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Proceedings Article | 14 September 2011 Paper

Paper

Automated in-situ optimization of bimorph mirrors at Diamond Light Source

John Sutter, Simon Alcock, Kawal J. Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 8139, 813906 (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.892719

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, X-rays, Electrodes, Cameras, Diamond, Light sources, Synchrotrons, Diffraction, CCD cameras, Hard x-rays

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Proceedings Article | 2 September 2010 Paper

Paper

A novel adaptive bimorph focusing mirror and wavefront corrector with sub-nanometre dynamical figure control

Kawal J. Sawhney, Simon Alcock, Riccardo Signorato

Proceedings Volume 7803, 780303 (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.861593

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Polishing, Wavefronts, Surface finishing, X-rays, X-ray optics, Optics manufacturing, Diamond, Light sources, Metrology

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Proceedings Article | 28 August 2010 Paper

Paper

Using the power spectral density method to characterise the surface topography of optical surfaces

Simon Alcock, Geoff Ludbrook, Tommy Owen, Richard Dockree

Proceedings Volume 7801, 780108 (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.861539

KEYWORDS: Spatial frequencies, Synchrotrons, Optics manufacturing, Mirrors, Metrology, Fizeau interferometers, Modulation transfer functions, Diamond, MATLAB, Astronomy

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Proceedings Article | 27 August 2010 Paper

Paper

A double-pass Fizeau interferometer system for measuring the figure error of large synchrotron optics

Geoff Ludbrook, Simon Alcock, Stewart Scott

Proceedings Volume 7801, 78010A (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.861538

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Interferometers, Fluctuations and noise, Synchrotrons, Fizeau interferometers, Optical testing, Reflectors, Data acquisition, Metrology, X-ray optics

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Proceedings Article | 27 August 2010 Paper

Paper

Recent upgrades to the Diamond-NOM: A slope measuring profiler capable of characterizing the surface profile of large optics with sub-nanometer repeatability

Simon Alcock, Kawal J. Sawhney, Stewart Scott

Proceedings Volume 7801, 780105 (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.861623

KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Metrology, Autocollimators, Optics manufacturing, Synchrotrons, Diamond, X-rays, Optical testing, Light sources, Adaptive optics

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Proceedings Article | 17 June 2009 Paper

Paper

A Fizeau interferometer system with double-pass and stitching for characterizing the figure error of large (>1m) synchrotron optics

G. Ludbrook, S. Alcock, K. J. S. Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 7389, 738939 (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.827865

KEYWORDS: Optical testing, Synchrotrons, Fizeau interferometers, Interferometers, Optics manufacturing, Reflection, X-ray optics, Optical design, Data acquisition, X-rays

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Proceedings Article | 20 September 2007 Paper

Paper

Progress in the x-ray optics and metrology lab at Diamond Light Source

Simon Alcock, K. J. Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 6704, 67040E (2007) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.737843

KEYWORDS: Metrology, X-ray optics, Synchrotrons, Optics manufacturing, Fizeau interferometers, X-rays, Mirrors, Interferometers, Atomic force microscopy, Diamond

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Proceedings Article | 29 August 2006 Paper

Paper

X-ray optics for beamlines at Diamond Light Source

S. Alcock, L. Alianelli, K. Sawhney

Proceedings Volume 6317, 63170C (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.684012

KEYWORDS: X-ray optics, Metrology, X-rays, Mirrors, Optics manufacturing, Lenses, Synchrotrons, Diamond, Light sources, Error analysis

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Showing 5 of 25 publications

Conference Committee Involvement (8)

Advances in Metrology for X-Ray and EUV Optics XI

3 August 2025 | San Diego, California, United States

Advances in Metrology for X-Ray and EUV Optics X

23 August 2023 | San Diego, California, United States

Advances in Metrology for X-Ray and EUV Optics IX

24 August 2020 | Online Only, California, United States

Advances in Metrology for X-Ray and EUV Optics VIII

11 August 2019 | San Diego, California, United States

Advances in Metrology for X-Ray and EUV Optics VII

6 August 2017 | San Diego, California, United States

Showing 5 of 8 Conference Committees

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