Influence of temperature difference on surface figure controlling during continuous polishing

Abstract

During continuous polishing, temperature is a significant source of processing uncertainty. Three work pieces of different kind material (K9, Nd:glass and ULE) were polished on 2.4m continuous polisher. It turns out that temperature difference has different influence on different material work pieces. It also indicates that temperature difference aggravates the processing uncertainy. The deformation caused by temperature difference is simulated using ANSYS. It shows that, with top-bottom temperature difference of 0.1°C, the deformation of Nd:glass, K9 and ULE are 0.444E-6 m (about 0.7025λ), 0.249E-6 m (about 0.3925λ ), and 0.105E-8 m (about 0.00166λ), respectively. With radial temperature difference of 0.1°C, the deformation of Nd:glass, K9 and ULE are 0.831E-7 m (about 0.1313λ), 0.465E-7 m (about 0.07348λ) and 0.196E-9 m (about 3.0973E-4λ), respectively. To explore the top-bottom temperature difference and radial temperature difference along the polishing surface, a small aperture Nd:glass and a large aperture Nd:glass in polishing have been measured using thermal infrared imager. The results showed that for O 260 mm × 26 mm Nd: glass, the radial temperature difference is about 0.1°C, while the top-bottom temperature difference is about 0.1°C ~ 0.21°C. Contrastively, for 810 mm×460 mm×40 mm Nd:glass, the radial temperature difference have reached 0.4°C, while top - bottom temperature difference ranges between 0.1°C ~ 0.27°C. When element gets larger, it will suffer greater temperature difference. These temperature differences are great enough to cause deformation far beyond the polishing accuracy required. Finally, methods are proposed to diminish the effect of temperature difference.