Asphere Fabrication Goes Commercial, Part II: Computer-Controlled Manufacturing January 26, 1999 Part II of this feature details

the fabrication of an aspheric component, from design through polish. By: Charles Klinger, OptiPro

Contents
Best fit sphere Profile grinding the asphere Polishing To be commercially feasible asphere fabrication requires computer-controlled grinding and polishing to achieve the desired optical prescription. Small tools follow a computer-defined path over the optic, dwelling for longer periods in areas requiring significant removal. So how is this process implemented? The fabrication of an asphere starts with the asphere equation, developed by the optical designer. Although a standardized representation specified by the international standards organization ISO, exists, not all designs use it. The ISO equation has the following form for a surface rotationally symmetric about the z-axis: The optician must convert the equation supplied by the design engineer to the form used by his manufacturing subsystems. Usually the modifications are as simple as changing a sign or taking the inverse of a value. If power series terms are included, operators must take care to enter the correct coefficients. Typically, a table listing sag height as a function of optic radius will accompany the asphere prescription. This can be used to verify that the correct equation has been entered, that English to metric conversions have been done correctly, and that no other miscellaneous errors have crept in. top Best fit sphere The next production step is the fabrication of a spherical surface that best approximates the desired asphere. This may be specified or it can be calculated. It is normal to define the best fit sphere as that sphere which would contact the asphere shape at the vertex and the clear aperture. Sometimes, if the asphere has a large, material-rich departure, the vertex and the diameter at the maximum departure point will be used. In other cases the fabricator may decide to use the sphere defined by the vertex and blank edge. The best fit sphere may be generated either on computer-numeric-controlled (CNC) equipment or by use of conventional machines. Most organizations making aspheres will use the former rather than the latter. A major advantage of doing it on the machine that will profile grind the asphere is that the part does not have to be moved to from one machine to another, so alignment is not lost. Once the best-fit sphere has been generated and the asphere equation verified, the optician must generate the path that the grinding tool will follow as it contours the part. Since the grinding tool is revolving, it can be modeled as a round tool. Consider a tool contacting the optical surface at the vertex of the lens. The vertex of the tool is in contact with the surface, and the center of the tool is one-half the tool diameter above the part and directly over the vertex. As the tool moves toward the edge of the lens, the point of contact shifts away from the vertex of the tool(see Figure 3). In the extreme of a full hemisphere, the point of contact is along a horizontal line going through the center of the curve. At this point the tool center is displaced in the horizontal direction by one-half the tool diameter, but the vertical position is level with the point of contact. If the shape of the profile to be ground is exactly spherical, the path of the center of the tool is a perfect arc who radius can be determined by adding one-half the tool diameter to the lens radius. Such a path is easy to program a machine tool such as a computer-controlled grinder. If, however, the part is an asphere, which may involve power series terms, the calculation is very complex. Fortunately, this type of calculation is well known in the metal working industry and provided as a utility called "cutter compensation" by most computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software packages. top Profile grinding the asphere For production in a computer-controlled fabrication machine, the ground best-fit sphere is placed into the machine and the tool is loaded into the tool spindle. The tool begins to rotate and the spindle follows the path defined by the computer program. Depending on the amount of material to be removed, the optician may use several different tools with progressively finer grits. The last tool usually will be one with a diamond grit no larger than 10 or 20 m. Some operators may go as fine as 4 to 6 m diamond size. Since each pass with 10 to 20 m tool may remove only 10 m of material, multiple passes will be required to completely profile the part. Obviously, there is a major time difference between machining a common material like BK-7 and a very hard material like sapphire After profile grinding, the part must be measured to ensure that it meets the desired profile. An interferometer can be used to map the surface of the optic. Another approach is to measure the optic using a contact profilometer. The asphere equation is entered as a target profile into the profilometer, which traces the stylus across the clear aperture of the optic surface to determine the actual profile (see Figure 5). The instrument then compares the actual profile with the target profile, determining the amount of error. The error trace produced is then used to generate a new tool path, and the grinding process is repeated. Since polishing is a much slower process than grinding, it is important to ensure there is not an excess of material to be removed in the polishing process.

top Polishing Once the grinding process has achieved the best possible surface, the part is ready for polishing, it is placed in an automatic polishing machine (see Figure 6). The polishing pads for these devices are created by the optician as needed. They can be composed of standard pitches, polyurethane, beeswax, or other material that the optician prefers to use. The slurry will be finely divided cerium oxide. The first step in polishing is one or more uniform removal passes. The purpose of this step is to evenly remove material from the surface to get below the SSD and into virgin glass. Since the part will initially be near final shape, very little figure change is desired. After the removal of subsurface damage, the part is remeasured to determine the figure degradation caused by polishing. The results of this measurement are typically transferred to disk and loaded into the computer-controlled polisher. The operator chooses a "compensated" pass, in which the computer reads the data file with the actual profile and applies corrections to bring the curve closer to the target. After each compensated pass, the part is measured again to produce fresh data for the next compensated pass. The process is repeated as necessary. In addition to the uniform removal and compensated passes, there are other options to help control local or area features such as ripples or undulations. top In part I of this feature, Charles Klinger discussed grinding and polishing optical glass. In part III, he will review capabilities and performance of commercial systems for asphere fabrication. About the author Charles Klinger is a senior applications engineer at OptiPro Systems, 6368 Dean Parkway, Ontario, NY 14519. Tel: 716265-0160; fax:716-265-9416; e-mail: cklinger@optipro.com.