MRI: Acquisition of Instrumentation for Precision Surface Characterization

这笔赠款支持北卡罗来纳州立大学精密工程中心的升级设备，用于精密制造、计量和控制方面的研究和教育。将购买三台设备：大口径(150 Mm)测量干涉仪、白光干涉显微镜和大样本原子力显微镜。每个设备覆盖测量光谱的特定空间波长/幅度区域，它们一起提供大范围测量的能力-从大型光学表面的形状误差到在加工过程中形成的表面的细节。这些仪器将被教职员工和学生用来进行各种研究项目。例如制造硬盘头、通过注塑复制塑料光子器件、用硬钢加工注塑模具以及制造用于惯性约束聚变实验的靶材。这些项目涵盖了广泛的工业部门，但它们的相似之处在于，它们的目标是了解和控制生产准确和可重复的部件的过程。每个项目都需要能够测量创建的表面的各个方面-有时需要整体形状，有时需要表面光洁度的细节。升级后的仪器将增强定义所创建表面的能力，并将导致感兴趣的精密制造过程的改进。

This grant provides support for upgraded equipment at the Precision Engineering Center at North Carolina State University for research and education in precision fabrication, metrology and control. Three pieces of equipment will be purchased: a large aperture (150 mm) form measuring interferometer, a white-light interferometric microscope and a large-sample Atomic Force Microscope. Each device covers a certain spatial wavelength/amplitude region of the measurement spectrum and together they provide the ability to measure over a wide range - from form error on large optical surfaces to the details of surfaces created in a machining process. These instruments will be used by faculty, staff and students to pursue a variety of research projects. Examples include the manufacturing of hard disk heads, replication of plastic photonic devices by injection molding, machining of injection molds from hard steel and fabrication of targets for inertial confinement fusion experiments. These projects cover a broad range of industrial sectors but are similar in that the goal is to understand and control a process to produce accurate and repeatable components. Each project requires the ability to measure aspects of the surfaces created - sometimes the overall shape is of interest and sometimes the details of the surface finish is needed. The upgraded instruments will enhance the capability to define the surfaces created and will lead to improvements in the precision fabrication process of interest.