Abstract
The precision fabrication of glass is increasingly demanded for the latest industrial applications of spherical lenses, micro-optical components, and so on. In many cases, the surface roughness of glass is required to be minute for improving the optical characteristics. In this paper, machining characteristics of SF-5 glass and quarts glass are studied by using the ELID grinding process to get mirror surface and productivity compared with a general lapping process. A rotary type grinder with air spindle was used for the experiments. Mitutoyo surface tester and AFM were also used to measure the grinded surface of glass. As the results of experiments, they showed that the surface roughness (Ra) of SF-5 glass was under 7.8 nm and that of quartz glass was under 3.0 m using the # 8000 grinder. So, the possibility of highly efficient and accurate surface for optical components can be achieved by the ELID grinding process.