As the demand for lower surface roughness precision optics increases for high tech applications, polishing solutions that can achieve low surface roughness are needed. Pureon is committed to developing advanced polishing solutions for the precision optics market. Cerium oxide is one of the most common materials used to polish precision optics, and the surface quality that can be achieved depends on the mean particle size of the material, the purity of the material, polishing pad, and slurry chemistry. To achieve low surface roughness, Pureon has developed an advanced final polish cerium oxide slurry with a mean particle size of ~ 0.1 μm (nanoceria formulation) and narrow particle size distribution. To determine if this nanoceria formulation can achieve low surface roughness, the formulation was compared to Ultra-Sol® Optiq which is an industry leading slurry for precision optics and has a mean particle size of ~ 0.45 μm. The initial experiments were performed on OPTIVISION™ 4540 pads for both Ultra-Sol Optiq and nanoceria formulation with fused silica glass. The surface roughness was improved by 30% when using the nanoceria formulation compared to Ultra-Sol Optiq. The surface roughness was measured with a 3D optical profiler. An in-depth study of how the nanoceria formulation can improve surface quality for diverse types of glass will be presented, using fused silica as an example material.
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