In yesterday's article, we learned about the main concepts of ion beam polishing and the current research and development status of ion beam polishing machines. Today, we will take a look at the advantages of ion beam polishing machines.

1. Non contact material removal

During the processing of ion beam polishing machine, the mirror surface will not deform due to stress, so there will be no copy effect. The removal function at the mirror edge does not change due to the change of contact area and pressure. The edge removal function is the same as the center, and there is no Edge effects in the processing process. During the machining process, the ion source can fully move out of the workpiece surface, ensuring that the machining process can undergo complete convolution and has stronger operability.

2. Near Gaussian removal function

Unlike other optical processing methods, the removal function of ion beam polishing has a spatial distribution close to Gaussian, which facilitates the calculation of processing dwell time. Meanwhile, due to the fact that the ion beam polishing process occurs in vacuum, the factors that determine the material removal rate are more clear, and there are fewer components that affect the stability of the removal function. The controllability and stability of the removal function are better, making it easier to obtain removal functions with different characteristics by adjusting working parameters, thereby improving the controllability and accuracy of optical processing.

3. Better adaptability to optical processing

During the polishing process of the ion beam polishing machine, the beam always adheres closely to the optical mirror surface, without introducing frequency band errors caused by tool and mirror mismatch. Not only suitable for optical processing of flat and spherical surfaces, but also for high-precision machining of high steepness aspherical surfaces. At the same time, ion beam polishing method can be used for high-precision polishing of most commonly used optical materials, without the need to use different abrasives or polishing fluids depending on the material.

4. More accurate material removal process

During the ion beam polishing process, the material volume removal rate and material removal distribution are highly controllable. Compared with the contact method, the ion beam polishing method can accurately calibrate and calculate the removal function through experiments and mathematical calculations, ensuring high convergence efficiency in ion beam polishing. It is a truly deterministic machining method. 5. Wider application possibilities

Traditional methods often only have the sole goal of material removal for machining planning, and due to their technical characteristics, various methods often cannot effectively converge and correct residuals in all spatial frequency bands. In the process of ion beam polishing machine, ions interact with mirror materials, and a series of complex physical processes occur during this process. Not only can the material be accurately removed, but it can also be further used to improve the surface quality of the mirror. For example, applications such as using sacrificial layer method to improve mirror roughness and using additional material removal method to achieve full frequency convergence.