FLUID JET POLISHING OF OPTICAL-SURFACES

We present a new finishing process that is capable of locally shaping and polishing optical surfaces of complex shapes. A fluid jet system i s used to guide a premixed slurry at pressures less than 6 bars to the optical surface. We used a slurry comprising water and 10% #800 SiC a brasives (21.8 mu m) to reduce the surface roughness of a BK7 sample f rom 350 to 25 nm rms and to vary the shape of a polished sample BK7, m aintaining its surface roughness of 1.6 nm rms, thereby proving both t he shaping and polishing possibilities of the presented method. (C) 19 98 Optical Society of America.