Designing, fabricating, and testing freeform surfaces for space optics

Xuejun Zhang; Donglin Xue; Ming Li; Xuefeng Zeng; Zhiyu Zhang

doi:10.1117/12.2025675

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7 September 2013 Designing, fabricating, and testing freeform surfaces for space optics

Xuejun Zhang, Donglin Xue, Ming Li, Xuefeng Zeng, Zhiyu Zhang

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Proceedings Volume 8838, Optical Manufacturing and Testing X; 88380N (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2025675
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2013, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Freeform surfaces provide more design freedoms to imaging system without introducing new types of aberrations, therefore better performance can be expected. In this paper, the design of a four-mirror telescope with freeform surfaces was introduced and issues such as tolerancing , manufacturability were discussed; Based on that, fabrication and testing of freeform surfaces were discussed; Particularly direct CNC generation, deterministic polishing techniques including CCOS, MRF and IBF Polishing were presented in detail. Since testing is critical to make high accurate freeform surfaces, the paper focused on Computer Generated Hologram (CGH) design and implement to measure large freeform mirrors. In particular, correction of detector to mirror mapping distortion was discussed in detail. Finally, the full field alignment results were given to show the feasibility of using large freeform surfaces in space optics.

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Xuejun Zhang, Donglin Xue, Ming Li, Xuefeng Zeng, and Zhiyu Zhang "Designing, fabricating, and testing freeform surfaces for space optics", Proc. SPIE 8838, Optical Manufacturing and Testing X, 88380N (7 September 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2025675

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