Characterization of Pad Materials in Abrasive Profile Polishing

INTRODUCTION Hard and temperature resistant materials are used for mold manufacturing of optical glass lenses. These materials are not machinable by ultra precision diamond milling and turning processes. For example hardened steel or tungsten carbide can be ground in optical quality regarding shape but additional polishing is necessary to guarantee the high requirements for optical surface quality. For finishing of structured surfaces in optical quality industrial processes do not exist. Collimation lenses for high performance diode lasers show as example an increasing industrial application with the requirement for micro structured optics [1]. Due to the growing importance and increasing variety of these structured optics an abrasive polishing process for finishing structured surfaces without degrading the pre-ground high shape accuracy of theses structures was developed by the authors. This paper gives an overview on applicable pad materials for abrasive polishing processes. Polishing experiments in cylindrical groove arrays made from hardened steel show that felt and hardwood cause a clearly better polishing effect compared to plastics.