Effect of polishing times for glass optics after laser-assisted single point diamond turning

Jonathan D. Ellis; Sai Kode; Dalibor Mikulic; Frank Niehaus

doi:10.1117/12.2691778

29 November 2023 Effect of polishing times for glass optics after laser-assisted single point diamond turning

Jonathan D. Ellis, Sai Kode, Dalibor Mikulic, Frank Niehaus

Proceedings Volume 12778, Optifab 2023; 127780F (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2691778
Event: SPIE Optifab, 2023, Rochester, New York, United States

Abstract

Laser-assisted diamond turning has been shown to reduce tool wear, improve productivity, and achieve better surface specifications (including roughness and form) for traditionally diamond turnable materials for infrared optics. Amorphous glass being typically harder than IR materials, thus, diamond turning is less effective compared to traditional grinding and polishing methods. However, traditional grinding and polishing come with drawbacks, such as introducing significant subsurface damage ranging from 20-60 μm, necessitating removal during the polishing process, known as grey out. During grey out polishing, the optical axis can wander, leading to errors between the mechanical axis and optical axis when polishing aspheres. Moreover, sub-aperture polishing steps add mid-spatial frequency errors with each subsequent iteration before form convergence to a low irregularity. Laser-assisted diamond turning for amorphous glass shows promise as a method for rapidly producing near-net optics with minimal sub-surface damage.. This enables two critical gains for optics manufacturing: 1) glass optics can be polished to finished specifications much more quickly than with traditional grinding and polishing; and 2) mechanical tolerances such as wedge and sag can be maintained with precision, reducing manufacturing errors in aspheric optics. In this work, we present data showing that subsurface damage can be reduced to <3 μm for glass optics. Additionally, we demonstrate that form accuracy remains better than 500 nm for even after 10 or more diamond turning passes, indicating extended tool life and high level of conformity to near-net shape.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Jonathan D. Ellis, Sai Kode, Dalibor Mikulic, and Frank Niehaus "Effect of polishing times for glass optics after laser-assisted single point diamond turning", Proc. SPIE 12778, Optifab 2023, 127780F (29 November 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2691778

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