Chemical And Mechanical Techniques For Polishing Glass

In the processing of high quality surfaces in the optics industry over the past two decades, tremendous technological advancements have been made. The advent of precision-oriented grinding, combined with chemical-mechanical polishing processes, has resulted in the generation of higher quality surfaces, both in figure and roughness. The requirement for high-quality surfaces int erms of defect concentration and surface finish has pushed the need for such advancement. The technology behind chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) for the generation of optical and electronic grade surfaces, including the dependence of CMP on conventional grinding and lapping in terms of surface preparation for polishing, is discussed in this paper.