Influence of material removal programming on ion beam figuring of high-precision optical surfaces

Abstract

Ion beam figuring (IBF) provides a nanometer/subnanometer precision fabrication technology for optical components, where the surface materials on highlands are gradually removed by the physical sputtering effect. In this deterministic method, the figuring process is usually divided into several iterations and the sum of the removed material in each iteration is expected to approach the ideally removed material as nearly as possible. However, we find that the material removal programming in each iteration would influence the surface error convergence of the figuring process. The influence of material removal programming on the surface error evolution is investigated through the comparative study of the contour removal method (CRM) and the geometric proportion removal method (PRM). The research results indicate that the PRM can maintenance the smoothness of the surface topography during the whole figuring process, which would benefit the stable operation of the machine tool and avoid the production of mid-to-high spatial frequency surface errors. Additionally, the CRM only has the corrective effect on the area above the contour line in each iteration, which would result in the nonuniform convergence of the surface errors in various areas. All these advantages distinguish PRM as an appropriate material removal method for ultraprecision optical surfaces.