Investigations on the surface quality of grinded inner contours using different manufacturing strategies on fused silica

Abstract

In the field of optical manufacturing, fused silica has a high and constantly growing application potential. Its material advantages, such as low thermal expansion and high thermal shock resistance, as well as its high transparency from the ultraviolet to the infrared spectral range, result in a large number of application fields. For example, manufacturing processes in semiconductor technology require high-quality quartz materials throughout the wafer handling process to avoid non-permissible contamination and to withstand the high process temperatures. Another example are monolithic components for fiber preform manufacturing, where internal contours with high aspect ratios (e.g. component length to component diameter) and high surface qualities are required to draw fiber types with special properties. The demands on the complexity and accuracy of these components are constantly increasing, which is accompanied by the need to analyse and optimize modern CNC manufacturing techniques more and more. In the following, investigations on the grinding of internal contours with a high aspect ratio are presented, in which the influence of an ultrasonic assistance as well as different machining strategies are considered.