Proposal for Machining Optical Free Form Surfaces Using Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet

Abstract

Optics with free form surface can be achieve special imaging effects and reduce component amounts in optical systems. However, it is difficulty to fabricate high accuracy, damage-free optical surface with free form surfaces by conventional method. Atmospheric plasma machining is a non-contact chemical processing method which can fabricate optics without damaged layer. Numerical controlled atmospheric pressure plasma machining (NC-APPM) method is proposed to machine optical free form surfaces. A new atmospheric pressure plasma jet generator was designed to get Gaussian rotational symmetry removal spot and the spot maximum diameter is 1.5mm. Base on dwelling time algorithm, a sinusoidal wave structure, the pitch 2mm and the amplitude 500 nm, is fabricated on a pre-polished flat silica quartz surface using three-axis numerically controlled machine made by ourselves. The result shows that the amplitude error is 59 nm compare to the expectation value surfaces using numerical controlled atmospheric plasma machining method.