Development of Tools for Electrorheological Finishing of Small Optical Components

Small aspheric and complex optical mirrors/lenses are facing an increasing demand in the fields of opto-electronics, communication, project and display systems, life science and automotive applications, etc. Some stringent applications call for the surface roughness of those surfaces to be as low as a few nm. Conventional polishing methods are not suitable due to problems in tool miniaturization and tool wear. This research aims to develop a novel polishing process for polishing small complex optical surfaces based on electrorheological finishing. Tool / spindle systems will be designed, fabricated and evaluated. Process modeling and strategies for using the developed process for polishing will also be addressed.