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Microstructured optical elements made of glass are generally replicated by hot pressing with super-hard materials, such as binderless tungsten carbide (WC) and precision ceramic. However, in grinding of microstructures, problems frequently occur in terms of rough ground surface, chipping and rounding of micro-structures edges when compared to conventional grinding. In order to overcome these technological constraints, a promising precision grinding method for microstructured surfaces that applies ultrasonic vibration to improve the surface quality, and protect the edges and tips of microstructured surfaces is presented. The experimental investigation of ultrasonic vibration assisted grinding of microstructures on binderless WC is researched. The effects of ultrasonic vibration on surface roughness, form accuracy and edge radius were analyzed. The morphology of surface and array edges was examined with a scanning electron microscope (SEM), while the surface roughness was measured by a laser interferometer. And a contact probe profilometer was used to assess the form of array and radius of microstructured edges. Experimental results showed that the application of ultrasonic vibration leads to significant improvements of the surface roughness and edges of microstructures compared with traditional precision grinding processes. A micro cylinder lens array of binderless WC with surface roughness of 78nm and edge radius of less than 1μm was obtained. The novel grinding method is feasible and applicable in machining higher form accuracy microstructures.

Femtosecond laser micromachining technology shows abroad application background in the field of micro manufacturing due to its unique advantages, especially for micromachining of ultrahard materials such as Silicon carbide (SiC) ceramic. The femtosecond laser micromachining system was set up, by using the system, effects of scanning velocity and laser pulse energy on quality of micromachined features were evaluated. The optimized technological parameter was obtained as 8mW, 1mm/s with 1kHz repetition frequency respectively on the basis of the morphological characteristics and microstructure accuracy. Besides, V-shaped cavity of 300μm depth and 120°angle was generated with layer-by-layer scan machining. Thus femtosecond laser micromachining technology is an effective method for hard and brittle materials precision processing.

This paper aims to develop a laser assisted grinding process capable of manufacturing micro features in high strength materials. A diode laser with wavelength 808 nm was set on a precision grinding machine. Micro grooves were fabricated on high strength materials including silicon nitride and aluminium oxide by using the laser assisted grinding process, i.e. laser pre-heat workpiece flowed by micro grinding. The experimental results showed that the laser assisted grinding process resulted in deeper grooves due to thermal expansion of workpiece materials caused by laser heating. However, the machined surface roughness was more consistently better than that obtained using solo grinding process and applying coolant. No subsurface damage was observed in the SEM images of cross sections of the machined workpieces when laser assisted grinding process was used.

Based on the single diamond grit scratching and normal grinding assisted with ELID (Electrolytic in Process Dressing), the surface/subsurface integrity of machined spectrosil 2000 and BK7 glasses under various material removal modes have been investigated. In Single diamond grit scratching tests, the scratching traces display four kinds of scratch characteristics according to different material removal modes. In the diamond normal grinding, the surface/subsurface integrity analysis shows BK7 glass has a better machinability than that of spectrosil 2000. Moreover, with the increasing ae(depth of cut), these two kinds of glasses had the opposite variation trends about the Ra values and the force ratio, which is attributed to various material removal modes. While contrasting these two kinds of optical glasses ground under the same aeparameters, the smaller grinding force and grinding force ratio (Fn/Ft), as well as the more stable force curves correspond to a better surface quality.

In order to realize ductile machining of optical glasses using mono-layer nickel electroplated coarse-grained diamond grinding wheel, a novel conditioning technique features using a copper bonded diamond grinding wheels of 15m grain size dressed by ELID (electrolytic inprocess dressing) to condition the 46m grain sized diamond wheel has been developed. During the conditioning process, a force transducer was used to monitor the conditioning force, a coaxial optical distance measurement system was used to in-situ monitor the modified wheel surface status. White-light interferometry (WLI), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to characterize the conditioned wheel surface status as well as the ground optical glass surface topography correspondingly. The experimental result indicates that a minimized wheel radial run-out error of less than 2μm as well as the top-flattened diamond grains of constant wheel peripheral envelop profile were generated on a 5-axis ultra-precision machine tool. The grinding experiment proved that the well conditioned 46μm coarse-grained diamond wheel can be used in realizing the ductile grinding of optical glass BK7, which indicates that the newly developed conditioning technique is feasible and applicable to introduce the coarse-grained diamond wheels into precision machining of brittle and hard-to-machine materials.

An advanced conditioning technique was developed to precisely and effectively condition the nickel electroplated mono-layer coarse-grained diamond grinding wheel of 46m and 91m grain size with an aim to fabricate Diamond Micro Tool Arrays (DMTA), to meet the high demands of form accuracy, surface quality and low subsurface damage in ductile machining of silicon carbide (SiC). The precision machining experiments on SiC were carried out on a precision grinder to determine the applicability of these fabricated diamond micro tool array (DMTA). The experimental result indicates that the newly developed DMTA is applicable and feasible to realize ductile machining on SiC with high efficiency and low diamond tool wear rate, which shows a good prospect to apply this new concept diamond tool type in precision machining of SiC, as well as the other brittle and hard-to-machine materials.

This paper aims to evaluate the surface and sub-surface integrity of optical glasses which were correspondingly machined by coarse and fine-grained diamond grinding wheels on Tetraform ‘C’ and Nanotech 500FG. The experimental results show that coarse-grained diamond grinding wheels are capable of ductile grinding of optical glasses with high surface and sub-surface integrity. The surface roughness values are all in nanometer scale and the sub-surface damages are around several micros in depth, which is comparative to those machined by fine-grained diamond wheels.

In this paper, a novel conditioning technique features using copper bonded diamond grinding wheels of 91μm grain size assisted with ELID (electrolytic in-process dressing) as a conditioner to precisely and effectively condition nickel electroplated monolayer coarse-grained diamond grinding wheels of 151μm grain size was firstly developed. Under optimised conditioning parameters, the super abrasive diamond wheel was well conditioned in terms of a minimized run-out error and flattened diamond grain surfaces of constant peripheral envelope, with the conditioning force monitored by a force transducer as well as the modified wheel surface status in-situ monitored by a coaxial optical distance measurement system. Finally the grinding experiment on BK7 was conducted using the well conditioned wheel with the corresponding surface morphology and subsurface damage measured by AFM (atomic force microscope) and SEM (scanning electron microscope) respectively. The experimental result shows that the newly developed conditioning technique is applicable and feasible to ductile grinding optical glass featuring nano scale surface roughness, indicating a prospect of introducing super abrasive diamond wheels into ductile machining of brittle materials.

A novel conditioning technique to precisely and effectively condition the nickel electroplated mono-layer coarse-grained diamond grinding wheel of 91m grain size was developed to fabricate a Diamond Micro Tool Array (DMTA) in ductile machining of brittle materials. During the fabricating process, a copper bonded diamond grinding wheels (91m grain size) dressed by ELID (electrolytic in-process dressing) was applied as a conditioner, a force transducer was used to monitor the conditioning force, and a coaxial optical distance measurement system was used to insitu monitor the modified wheel surface status. The experimental result indicates that the newly developed conditioning technique is applicable and feasible to generate required wheel topography of less than 2μm run-out error and grain geometries. The taper cutting test on BK7 proves the fabricated DMTA is capable of realizing ductile machining of brittle materials.

This paper presents a novel, rapid and damage-free method to polish the ultra-smooth surface of the SiC optics. First, the basic philosophy of this method is introduced, which uses the active radicals got from CF4 in the atmospheric pressure plasma zone to react with the SiC material at the optics surface to generate the vaporization of SiF4. Then, the design of the atmospheric pressure plasma jet and the corresponding prototyping polishing facility are introduced. The theoretical analysis on the necessary conditions to generate the excited radicals is also presented in this part. To verify the effectiveness of this novel polishing method, experiments on the generation of atmospheric pressure plasma and the SiC optics polishing are carried out with our prototyping facility. The experiment results show that plasma discharge is stable at the atmospheric pressure and sub-nanometer roughness of the polished SiC surface can be obtained.

With the development of science and technology, Atomic Force Microscope is widely applied to the field of machining process in nanometer scale. Due to the limitation of the inventive purpose of AFM, only height mode and deflection mode can be applied in AFM-tip micromachining. It can’t control the machining depth during the micromachining process at present. In this paper, a new micromachining system is set up, which composed of a high precision three-dimensional stage, an AFM, a diamond probe and a special control device. By utilizing variation parameters PID algorithm and controlling the machining depth directly, the micromachining system can resolve the problem mentioned above.

An improved arc welding method was developed to fabricate carbon nanotube probe under direct view of optical microscope. The new fabrication method here needs not coat silicon probe in advance with metal film, which greatly reduces the fabrication’s difficulty. An easy method for shortening the nanotube probe was also developed. The improved fabrication method here is simple and reliable. The fabricated carbon nanotube probe showed good properties of higher length-to-diameter aspect ratio, better wear characteristics than silicon probe.