Progress of advanced optical manufacturing technology integrated line

Abstract

Because of the demand for better performance in optical systems, there's a continuing effort to find more efficient ways of producing large optics. FOERC's involvement in developing new techniques for the fabrication of large optical components has resulted in the AOMTIL (Advanced Optical Manufacturing Technology Integrated Line). The purpose of the AOMTIL is to demonstrate the novel manufacturing process and technology for large optics in modern optical system. The progress of AOMTIL is presented in the paper. There are mainly four parts in AOMTIL as follows, the ultra-precision grinding, deterministic figuring or polishing, perfect surface conditioning and precision optical metrology. The preliminary results of the AOMTIL show the possibility to yield more than 20 pieces large optical components per month and the advantages in achieving high accuracy. Optical flats larger than 500mm in diameter have been produced with flatness better than λ/10 peak to valley.