The NiP coating has excellent wear and corrosion resistance, and electroless nickel-phosphorus coating is one of the best measures for surface modification of metal optical devices. The NiP layer could be processed by single-point diamond turning (SPDT). However, the periodic marks on the surface of the NiP coating processed by SPDT will lead to diffraction and stray light, which will reduce the reflectivity and image quality of the mirror. This paper studied smoothing polishing based on chemical mechanical polishing to remove turning periodic marks efficiently. Firstly, we studied the chemical corrosion and mechanical removal mechanism of smoothing polishing of the NiP coating through theoretical analysis. Then, the influencing factors of processing the quality of smoothing polishing are analyzed, and the optimal machining parameters and polishing slurry formula are formulated. Finally, through the developed process, the surface roughness of Root Mean Square (RMS) 0.223 nm is realized on the NiP coating, and an ultra-smooth surface that can meet the service accuracy of a hard X-ray mirror is obtained. Our research simplifies the high-precision machining process of the NiP coating and improves the machining efficiency. Therefore, it can be used as a new high-precision manufacturing NiP coating method.

The surface of metal mirrors is often polished by electroless coating with a Ni–P modified layer after single-point diamond turning. In practice, however, improvements in mirror quality are closely related to the polishing environment, polishing medium, and polishing force. If not adequately controlled, processing defects such as visible scratches can lead to the deterioration of surface roughness. Based on the Ni–P modified surface of a metal reflector mirror, this study optimizes the configuration of magnetorheological figuring (MRF) fluid and polishing process parameters so that MRF high-efficiency surface modification can be realized and the scratch problem can be resolved. The processing method of a high-performance metal mirror is developed by studying the high-efficiency and high-precision processing technology based on small head smoothing. The surface roughness achieved by the proposed method was better than Ra = 0.39 nm. The ultrasonic cleaning process effectively improved the surface roughness after processing. According to the combined processing technology developed in this study, the modified layer of the parabolic mirror with a diameter of 370 mm was processed, and the surface quality was increased from RMS = 338.684 nm to RMS = 21.267 nm.

NiP coating has excellent physicochemical properties and is one of the best materials for coating optical components. When processing NiP coatings on optical components, single-point diamond turning (SPDT) is generally adopted as the first process. However, SPDT turning produces periodic turning patterns on the workpiece, which impacts the optical performance of the component. Magnetorheological finishing (MRF) is a deterministic sub-aperture polishing process based on computer-controlled optical surface forming that can correct surface shape errors and improve the surface quality of workpieces. This paper analyzes the characteristics of NiP coating and develops a magnetorheological fluid specifically for the processing of NiP coating. Based on the basic Preston principle, a material removal model for the MRF polishing of NiP coating was established, and the MRF manufacturing process was optimized by orthogonal tests. The optimized MRF polishing process quickly removes the SPDT turning tool pattern from the NiP coating surface and corrects surface profile errors. At the same time, the surface quality of the NiP coating has also been improved, with the surface roughness increasing from Ra 2.054 nm for SPDT turning to Ra 0.705 nm.

Currently, meter-long guideways rarely achieve an accuracy of dozens of nanometers due to processing difficulties such as the material and the edge effect. In this paper, we focus on this problem and propose a set of optimization processing methods to cope with it. In the grinding stage, a grinding tool is designed to improve the reciprocating processing and address the problem of warping; in the polishing stage, three different processes are compared, and the combination of magnetorheological finishing technology and the polyurethane disc technology process is purposed to reduce the polishing cycle and improve the surface figure accuracy. Moreover, through the combined process of magnetorheological finishing and smoothing, the edge effect and medium- and high-frequency error are essentially suppressed. The meter-long guideway is achieved with an accuracy of dozens of nanometers. Although the sizes of surface A/C and B/D are 1000 mm × 240 mm and 1000 mm × 160 mm, the surface figures are 20.33 nm, 22.78 nm, 39.23 nm and 26.58 nm RMS (Root Mean Square), respectively. The nanometer accuracy guideway is critical to an ultra-precision machine tool. Finally, the X-axis straightness of the profile measurement system formed by the guideway reaches 200 nm/600 mm.

The accuracy of traditional measuring machines is affected by the measuring range and sensitive geometric errors, and it is not possible to combine large caliber and high-precision measurements. This study proposes a differential geometric error-weighting method for designing a high-precision, large-diameter measuring machine. The machine utilized a zero-Abbe arm structure and applied the rigid body theory and small-angle hypothesis to model geometric errors. Weights were calculated for 23 geometric errors, identifying eight sensitive ones. A picometer-precision laser interferometer (quDIS) with a theoretical positioning accuracy of 0.2 nm/mm and standard flat rulers are used to ensure highly accurate positioning of the Y-axis/Z-axis of the measuring platform and reduce the straightness of both axes by approximately 75%, with radial and axial runout of the rotary table under 100 nm. The development and design method of the high-precision measuring machine proposed in this study is applicable to large-diameter high-precision flexible measurement, and the accurate control of measuring machine movement accuracy is realized by calculating the geometric error weights.