Research on the Characterization of Ultra-Smooth K9 Glass Surface Polished by Nanoparticle Colloid Jet Machining

Abstract

In this work, optical K9 glass surface has been flattened by nanoparticle colloid jet machining, which is an ultra-smooth surface processing technique utilizing surface chemical effect between work surface atoms and nanoparticles in alkaline colloid to remove the uppermost surface atoms. The surface removal process of nanoparticle colloid jet machining has been investigated through K9 glass polish experiments. And the characterizations of ultra-smooth K9 glass surface polished by nanoparticle colloid jet machining have also been studied in this paper. Surface profiler and atomic force microscopy (AFM) are used to observe the surface microscopic morphological characteristics of K9 glass sample before and after polishing by nanoparticle colloid jet machining. The measurement results of processed surface prove that the primary scratches on the original surface have been completely wiped off by nanoparticle colloid jet machining and the roughness of the K9 glass surface has been improved to be less than 1 nm (Rq). Autocovariance (ACF) is investigated along a cross section of the K9 glass surface to determine the dominant spatial frequencies. The ACF curves show that the surface morphology of K9 glass processed by nanoparticle colloid jet machining is completely different from the preprocessed surface. The final K9 glass surface has been flattened by nanoparticle colloid jet machining. The microscopic morphological profile of the final K9 glass surface becomes increasingly smooth and eventually close to a flat state.