Ultra-precision machining of optoelectronics and microsystems (UPROAR)

我们的总体目标是开发一种适用于光子学和微系统的超精密切割/研磨系统。我们将与一批英国公司合作开发该系统作为试验台，并实施一套尖端仪器附加组件，以更好地控制具有亚纳米表面光洁度和复杂物体总公差低于100纳米的材料的加工。切割依赖于主轴上以高达150,000 rpm的速度驱动的镶嵌钻石的切割盘，该切割盘相对于工件精确平移。系统中的任何振动或不完美都将导致表面退化、刻面碎裂以及沟槽和沟槽上的边缘碎屑。重要的是，在将切屑刀片放在主轴上时，不可避免地会出现老生常谈的错误，比如刀片是否准确地与主轴轴线成90度角，刀片是否完全同心，平移是否真的沿着刀片的方向。当然，在现实世界中，这些事情从来都不是真正完美的，因此该项目的一个目标是实现反馈和控制，这允许自适应补偿。在该项目中，我们将建立一个系统，使用900公斤的花岗岩来容纳和创建一个超刚性系统，然后使用气浮元件和控制信号来识别和创建反馈回路，以实现令人难以置信的表面光洁度和整体精度。关键的是，我们将在延展性加工区域工作，在材料的弹性极限下运行使我们能够避免脆性断裂和主要降低光学和微系统元件性能的那种损坏。我们将关注一系列光学和电子材料，包括玻璃、晶体和半导体。在项目的后期阶段，我们将寻求采用和创造新的方法来“真实”叶片，使用最先进的计量方法来控制叶片侧壁磨损、叶片颤振、非同心度起源的加工速度和与负载相关的振动等问题。从这项工作中，我们希望获得有价值的见解，对我们的商业合作伙伴有所帮助。首先，通过在英国创造新的超精密机床，其次，了解如何最好地实施先进技术，以及第三，通过在具有重要技术意义的材料中制造示范设备来真正证明我们的方法是有效的。

Our overall goal is to develop an ultraprecision dicing / grinding system that will be applicable to photonics and microsystems. Working with a set of UK companies we will develop the system as a test-bed and implement a set of cutting edge instrumentation add-ons to better control the machining of materials with sub-nanometre surface finishes and sub-100 nanometre overall tolerancing on complex objects.Dicing relies on a diamond-impregnated cutting disc driven at up to 150,000 rpm on a spindle being accurately translated relative to a workpiece. Any vibration or lack of perfection in the system will result in degraded surfaces, chipping of diced facets and edge chipping on grooves and channels. Importantly when placing the dicing blade on the spindle, there are inevitable errors in truism, for example, whether the blade is accurately at 90 degrees to the spindle axis, whether the blade is perfectly concentric, and whether the translation is truly along the direction of the blade. Of course, in the real world, these things are never truly perfect, and so a goal of the project is to implement feedback and control, which allows adaptive compensation. In the project, we will build a system using 900kg of granite to hold and create an ultra-stiff system, then use air-bearing elements and control signals to identify and create feedback loops to achieve incredible levels of surface finish and overall precision. Critically we will work in the ductile machining regime where operation in the elastic limit of the material allows us to avoid brittle fracture and the sort of damage which majorly degrades the performance of optical and microsystem elements.We will be looking at a range of optical and electronic materials, including glasses, crystals and semiconductors. In the latter phase of the project, we will be looking to adopt and create new ways to 'true' the blade, using state-of-the-art metrology to control issues of blade side-wall wear, blade flutter, non-concentricity originated machining rates and load-related vibration. From this work, we expect to gain valuable insights that will help our commercial partners. Firstly, by creating new ultra-precision machine tools in the UK, secondly understanding how best to implement advanced techniques and thirdly, by making exemplar devices in technologically important materials to really prove our approaches work.