Abstract

Laser polishing of optical components offers a flexible approach to reduce the roughness regardless of the surface shape. For this reason, laser polishing is especially suited for aspherical and freeform surfaces which can be polished with up to 1 cm²/s for fused silica. After measuring the surface, a subsequent form correction can be added with a high precision laser ablation step. In this paper, both processes as well as their combination are described and results of processing fused silica and BK7 are presented.

© 2014 Optical Society of America