Quality control of micro–nano structured and freeform surfaces is becoming increasingly important, which leads to challenging requirements in the measurement and characterization of rough and highly reflective surfaces. As an important measurement technique, white light scanning interferometry (WLSI) is a fast noncontact method to measure three-dimensional (3D) surface profiles. Nevertheless, the existing WLSI 3D surface reconstruction algorithms are prone to environmental vibrations and phase changes caused by reflections on the tested surface. A novel peak detecting algorithm that combines the white light phase-shifting interferometry (WLPSI) method and fast Fourier transform (FFT) coherence-peak-sensing technique is proposed in this paper, which can accurately determine the local fringe peak and improve the vertical resolution of the measurement. A microcomponent (10 μm standard step height) and a spherical surface were used as test specimens to evaluate the proposed method. Both simulated and experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves the precision and anti-interference ability of the WLPSI and FFT methods, which can effectively reduce the batwing effects at the edges and solve the problem of positioning error in the maximum modulation.

Optical freeform surfaces are of great advantage in excellent optical performance and integrated alignment features. It has wide applications in illumination, imaging and non-imaging, etc. Machining freeform surfaces on infrared (IR) materials with ultra-precision finish is difficult due to its brittle nature. Fast tool servo (FTS) assisted diamond turning is a powerful technique for the realization of freeform optics on brittle materials due to its features of high spindle speed and high cutting speed. However it has difficulties with large slope angles and large rise-and-falls in the sagittal direction. In order to overcome this defect, the balance of the machining quality on the freeform surface and the brittle nature in IR materials should be realized. This paper presents the design of a near-rotational freeform surface (NRFS) with a low non-rotational degree (NRD) to constraint the variation of traditional freeform optics to solve this issue. In NRFS, the separation of the surface results in a rotational part and a residual part denoted as a non-rotational surface (NRS). Machining NRFS on germanium is operated by FTS diamond turning. Characteristics of the surface indicate that the optical finish of the freeform surface has been achieved. The modulation transfer function (MTF) of the freeform optics shows a good agreement to the design expectation. Images of the final optical system confirm that the fabricating strategy is of high efficiency and high quality. Challenges and prospects are discussed to provide guidance of future work.

The material characteristics such as size effect are one of the most important factors that could not be neglected in cutting the material at nanoscale. The effects of anisotropic nature of single crystal materials in nano-cutting are investigated employing the molecular dynamics simulation. Results show that the size effect of the plastic deformation is based on different plastic carriers, such as the twin, stacking faults, and dislocations. The minimum uncut chip thickness is dependent on cutting direction, where even a negative value is obtained when the cutting direction is {110}. It also determines the material deformation and removal mechanism (e.g., shearing, extruding, and rubbing mechanism) with a decrease in uncut chip thickness. When material is deformed by shearing, the primary shearing zone expands from the stagnation point or the tip of stagnation zone. When a material is deformed by extruding and rubbing, the primary deformation zone almost parallels to the cutting direction and expands from the bottom of the cutting edge merging with the tertiary deformation zone. The generated surface quality relates to the crystallographic orientation and the minimum uncut chip thickness. The cutting directions of {110}, {110}, and {111}, whose minimum uncut chip thickness is relatively small, have better surface qualities compared to the other cutting direction.

Multi-reflective imaging systems find wide applications in optical imaging and space detection. However, it is faced with difficulties in adjusting the freeform mirrors with high accuracy to guarantee the optical function. Motivated by this, an alignment-free manufacture approach is proposed to machine the optical system. The direct optical performance-guided manufacture route is established without measuring the form error of freeform optics. An analytical model is established to investigate the effects of machine errors to serve the error identification and compensation in machining. Based on the integrated manufactured system, an ingenious self-designed testing configuration is constructed to evaluate the optical performance by directly measuring the wavefront aberration. Experiments are carried out to manufacture a three-mirror anastigmat, surface topographical details and optical performance shows agreement to the designed expectation. The final system works as an off-axis infrared imaging system. Results validate the feasibility of the proposed method to achieve excellent optical application.

Freeform optics has been regarded as the next generation of the optical components, especially those with non-circular apertures are playing an increasingly significant role in scanning field and specialized optical system. However, there still exist challenges to machine non-circular optical freeform surface. This paper is focused on highly efficiently generating freeform surfaces with optical surface quality by ultra-precision turning using a fast tool servo (FTS). A systematic strategy of machining smooth freeform surfaces with rectangular aperture is proposed in this paper. The contour of freeform optics is decomposed and assigned to the motions of slide and FTS back-and-forth. An optimized model is established for deriving the profile of the rotational component to cater for the capacity of FTS. Tool path reconstruction is carried out to generate a smooth tool trajectory and modified the contour to cater for the stroke of FTS. Simulation is adopted to analyze the machining property of a typical rectangular freeform surface. A rectangular freeform surface is efficiently machined via the proposed method, where a micron level profile error and nanometric finish in Ra are realized. Characteristics of reflection are analyzed via experiment and simulation. Prospects of such machining approach are discussed to provide guidance to future study.