Optimization on manufacturing and testing technology for rectangle aperture off-axis aspheric mirror fine grinding

Abstract

High precision aspheric surface can be obtained conveniently by using single point diamond turning technology, liquidmagnetic polishing technology and ion beam polishing technology, but the costs of manufacturing is too enormous to be widely used. In fact, in the field of optical processing, the most commonly used technical solution is still making a best fit sphere firstly compared with aspheric equation, and then remove the material on the glass to correct the error between aspheric and best fit sphere by precision grinding and precision polishing. The resolving of the best-fit sphere and the material removal, however, is a very important problem during the fabrications. The two dimensional maps of surface error between the best fit sphere and the corresponding aspheric surface shows W shaped which has the maximum removal at the center and the edge of the workpeace and gradually reduces to zero at the 70.7 percent of the diameter. In the process of deterministic optical manufacturing, the edge effect will arise because of the change of machining conditions when polishing tool locates in edge area, which will lower the surface accuracy of workpiece and debase machining efficiency. W shaped error distribution and the edge effect will make it difficult to remove the error on the edge of the workpiece. Aiming at the situation, an algorithm available for control of edge effect is proposed. Considering the requirement of minimum material removal and the control of edge effect, the radius of the anti-edge effect sphere is calculated by programming. The advantage of the algorithm is shown by the comparison of results derived from new algorithm and empirical equation. At the same time, the application in the off-axis asphere fabrications also proves the correctness of the algorithm. This algorithm is very helpful for the theory and practice of the fabrications of off-axis asphere.