Zeeko has developed an automated process for improving the surface quality of glass press moulds, as used in the manufacture of lenses and mirrors.
Used for replicating optics, ranging from lenses in consumer digital cameras to high-accuracy thin mirrors for X-ray telescopes and microscopes, the moulds have an internal shape that is produced either by micro-grinding of tungsten carbide (WC) with a polycrystalline diamond tool, or by turning of electroless nickel (ENi) plating with a diamond tip.
The Zeeko 7-axis CNC intelligent robot polisher (IRP), using either precessed-bonnet or fluid-jet polishing, has been shown to be able to correctively polish moulds automatically and consistently to very high accuracy in terms of form error peak-to-valley (P-V) and surface texture (Ra). The result is a significant improvement in the quality of the optics, which can be of any shape: concave, flat, convex, aspheric or free-form.