Contributions of Kinematics and Viscoelastic Lap Deformation on the Surface Figure During Full Aperture Polishing of Fused Silica

摘要

A typical optical fabrication process involves a series of basic process steps including: 1) shaping, 2) grinding, 3) polishing, and sometimes 4) sub-aperture tool finishing. With significant innovation and development over the years in both the front end (shaping using CNC machines) and the back end (sup-aperture tool polishing), these processes have become much more deterministic. However, the intermediate stages (full aperture grinding/ polishing) in the process, which can be very time consuming, still have much reliance on the opticians insight to get to the desired surface figure. Such processes are not presently very deterministic (i.e. require multiple iterations to get desired figure). The ability to deterministically finish an optical surface using a full aperture grinding/polishing will aid optical glass fabricators to achieve desired figure in a more repeatable, less iterative, and more economical manner. Developing a scientific understanding of the material removal rate is a critical step in accomplishing this.