A Swing-Arm On-Machine Inspection Method for Profile Measurement of Large Optical Surface in Lapping Process

Generally, the optical components are fabricated by grinding, lapping, and polishing.And, those processes take long time to obtain such a high surface quality. Therefore, in the case of large optical component, the on-machine inspection (OMI) is essential. Because, the work piece is fragile and difficult to set up for fabricating and measuring. This paper is concerned about a swing-arm method for measuring surface profile oflarge optical concave mirror. The measuring accuracy and uncertainty for suggested method are studied. The experimental results show that this method is useful specially in lapping process with the accuracy of 3–5 μm. Those inspection data are provided for correcting the residual figuring error in lapping or polishing processes.