Study on Fabrication of a Large Concave Mirror Surface Using a Swing-Arm Type Profilometer

Generally optical components are fabricated by grinding, lapping and polishing processes. Those processes take long time to obtain optical high surface quality. In the case of large optical components, the on-machine measurement is strongly recommended because the workpiece is fragile and difficult to set up for fabricating and measuring. This paper is concerned about a swing-arm mechanism which can be used for on-machine measurement of a surface profile with a sensing probe end-effect, and also for grinding or lapping the surface with a corresponding tool. The measuring accuracy and uncertainty using a swing arm type profilometer have been studied. The experimental results show that this method is useful specially in lapping process with the accuracy of . Those inspection data are provided for correcting the residual figuring error in next processes.