Conventional polishing relies on controlling the shape of a polishing lab to adjust the entire surface of an optical element. In the hands of one of LightMachinery's master polishers, conventional hand polishing can achieve remarkable results but it has limitations. Conventional polishing can only adjust the basic parameters of wedge, sphere and astigmatism.

Fluid jet polishing utilizes a small computer controlled polishing tool that removes material in a very slow but predictable pattern. Advanced software developed by LightMachinery enables the correction of wavefront errors to remove nanometers of material and achieve surfaces that are very close to perfect. Fluid jet polishing is enabling optical, nanostructural, microfluidics, Silicon on Insulator (SOI), MEMS, and semiconductor projects that were previously considered to be impossible.

If your application requires truly flat smooth surfaces, uniform thickness or surfaces with arbitrary aspheric shapes then contact our staff to discuss your needs.

A sample of the flat optics produced at LightMachinery

High performance etalons like this require thickness uniformity to better than lambda/150 rms, coating thickness uniformity needs to be superb

Measuring a 150um thick, uniform thickness substrate

Before and after fluid jet polishing interferogram clearly demonstrates the FJP's ability to correct transmitted wavefront errors. This process was completed in a single pass, processing on only one side, based on transmitted wavefront data from a Zygo interferometer.

The ability to polish thin material very flat and uniform in thickness is a core expertise of LightMachinery

A Very Flat 4" Silicon Mirror Measured with a Zygo GPI after fluid jet polishing this silicon mirror has a surface variation matched to the zygo test flat to 1/100 wave peak to valley over a 95% clear aperture

Note the rms surface figure of lambda/1000! This is important for creating high finesse etalons

A conventionally polished 2" x 2" fused silica substrate (before fluid jet polishing) Measured with tunable laser mapping system in transmission there is a peak to valley slope of about 115nm

This same substrate after FJP Measured again with tunable laser mapping system in transmission there is a peak to valley error of about 3nm. Shown here in the same scale

Created with FJP technology, this demonstrates our ability to make completely arbitrary shapes to very high precision. The fringes are caused by the air gap between the designed surface and a flat substrate

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Most of the optics we make are custom made but we still have an interesting catalog.  Check it out! 

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Design etalons, lenses, resonators, VIPA's and explore optical material properties.