Advanced Processing of the Optical Surface on Large Lightweight Mirrors

In manufacturing of light-weight optics the most time consuming step is final polishing. This is a slow, iterative, expensive process and is often the pacing element in the program. Much of the problem is that known polishing techniques are slow ornon-deterministic. The added complication is that unique mechanical properties of light-weight mirror design require significant attention to the manner in which a polishing load is applied.MRF, featuring determinism, sophisticated polishing algorithms, exceptional system stability, high removal rate and ability to control polishing loads has the potential to reduce manufacturing cost as well as improve optical performance. With typicallybetter than an 80% convergence rate, MRF could save significant time in terms of both fabrication and metrology. Furthermore, MRF is relatively insensitive to z-axis positioning errors, thereby minimizing the appearance of