Discussion on Laser Cleaning of Optical Surface Machined by Magnetorheological Finishing

Magnetorheological finishing (MRF) is a novel precision optical machining technology. Owing to its flexible finishing process, MRF can eliminate subsurface damage, smooth rms micro roughness and correct surface figure errors. Through proper designing of numerical control, sphere and asphere optics can be machined by magnetorheological finishing with high quality. Owing to it's excellence in optical manufacturing, MRF has gained more and more application in industry. Under most conditions the optical surface after MRF would have certain contaminant particles and this would affect its working ability in future use. Formerly the polished workpiece is cleaned by flowing water or ultrasonic cleaning and the contaminat particles couldn't be totally removed. Laser cleaning is brought forward in this paper and good results could be anticipated.