Strength behaviour of etched Zerodur (R)

摘要

Zerodur (R) is a well-known glass-ceramic used for optical components because of its unequalled dimensional stability under changing temperature. For example, it is used for mirrors of space telescopes. Due to the large amount of material that has to be removed during fabrication of the mirrors a rather coarse grit is used for grinding. Strength limiting defects introduced by this procedure are eliminated by removing the damaged surface layer by etching to achieve a high strength.