Surface modeling for optical fabrication with linear ion source

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel surface modeling approach for optical fabrication using linear ion sources, enabling precise complex surface creation and error correction with higher efficiency than traditional methods.

Contribution

It extends surface decomposition to nonnegative sinusoidal wave surfaces and establishes a surface descriptor linking fabrication and characterization processes.

Findings

Feasibility of optical fabrication with linear ion sources demonstrated through simulations.

One-dimensional scanning effectively removes surface errors and fabricates high-quality diffractive gratings.

Simulation indicates higher efficiency compared to conventional fabrication methods.

Abstract

We present a concept of surface decomposition extended from double Fourier series to nonnegative sinusoidal wave surfaces, on the basis of which linear ion sources apply to the ultra-precision fabrication of complex surfaces and diffractive optics. It is the first time that we have a surface descriptor for building a relationship between the fabrication process of optical surfaces and the surface characterization based on PSD analysis, which akin to Zernike polynomials used for mapping the relationship between surface errors and Seidel aberrations. Also, we demonstrate that the one-dimensional scanning of linear ion source is applicable to the removal of surface errors caused by small-tool polishing in raster scan mode as well as the fabrication of beam sampling grating of high diffractive uniformity without a post-processing procedure. The simulation results show that, in theory, optical fabrication with linear ion source is feasible and even of higher output efficiency compared with the conventional approach.