Abstract
The diamond-turning process is a mean optical surface generation technique with high figure accuracy and surface finish. The diamond-turned surface has a significant diffraction effect introduced by the tool marks remaining on the surface, which heavily degrade the optical performance in the visible wavelength spectrum. The traditional approach that was used to eliminate this effect was polishing. In this paper, we present a method to find turning parameters that can generate an optical surface without diffraction effect directly by coupling a surface micro-topography model of a turned surface via the scattering theory The surface micro-topography model of the turned surface reveals the relationship between tool marks and the diamond-turning parameters (DTPs). The scattering theory reveals the relationship between diffraction intensity distributions (DIDs) and surface micro-topography of the turned surface. Therefore, we obtained the relationship between DIDs and DTPs. The diffraction effect is considered to be eliminated when the first-order diffraction intensity is less than 0.01% of incidence intensity. The criterion of turning parameters for diffraction elimination is then obtained. Finally, turning experiments are performed to confirm the effectiveness of this method, and the diffraction-free surface finish is achieved.
OPTICAL SURFACE FINISH MEASUREMENT.