Manufacturing technology for high order aspheric surface

Since high order aspheric surface finds significant applications in optical system, a rapid and effective manufacturing technology is required to meet the demand. Software was developed with VC6.0 for aspheric calculation to help fabrication, and a new compensation test was proposed for high order aspheric surface. Taking a high order aspheric collector with the diameter of 244mm as example, a manufacturing technology was developed and related investigations were conducted. Based on milling process and aspheric surface characteristics, several new grinding methods were proposed and related mathematical models were built. In order to process high order aspheric surface efficiently, computerized numerical control (CNC) milling direct shaping method was tested to reduce the complexity of subsequent processes, and numerical controlled small tool was combined with full aperture craft in polishing process to make aspheric surface smoother. Experimental results demonstrate the high order aspheric manufacturing technology is efficient, low cost and precise.