Ultrahigh-Precision Optical Surfaces: Fabrication Examples, Challenges, and Recent Approaches

High-precision lenses and mirrors for short wavelength light, including deep-UV (DUV) and x-ray, are manufactured by fully utilizing both traditional polishing techniques, which require empirical knowledge through trial and error, and modern polishing and surface-measurement techniques.

Kume provides an overview of techniques and innovations in manufacturing high-precision optical surfaces (unique-shape lenses, CaF2 lenses, x-ray mirrors, etc.).

Additionally, he showcases recent approaches to overcome technical challenges related to surface quality to fabricate ultrahigh-precision optical surfaces for short-wavelength light.

About the presenter
Takehiro Kume, Ph.D., is an optical manufacturing engineer working in the R&D lab at Natsume Optical Corp.

His primary focus is on the development of fabrication and metrology techniques for optical components with nanometer precision, such as x-ray mirrors. He holds a doctorate in precision engineering from the University of Tokyo.