Modeling the behavior of optical elements in radiation environments

Calculation of heating caused by the deposition of x-rays in thin film optical elements is complicated because the mean free path of photo and autoionization electrons is comparable to the thin film thickness and thus the electron deposition cannot be considered local. This paper describes the modeling in a 1-D code of: (a) x-ray deposition and transport; (b) electron production, deposition and transport; and (c) thermal conduction and transport. X-ray transport is handled by multigroup discrete ordinates, electron transport is done by the method of characteristics, applied to the two term spherical harmonics expansion approximation (P1) to the Spencer-Lewis transport equation, and thermal transport is computed by a simple Richardson extrapolation of a backward Euler solution to the heat conduction equations. Results of a few test cases are presented. 8 refs., 26 figs., 2 tabs