LightMachinery Inc. Uniform Thickness Wafers, Windows & Ultra-Flat Substrates

Fluid Jet polishing has enabled LightMachinery to produce large thin optics with less than 10nm of rms surface variation and thickness uniformity. These techniques can be applied to a wide variety of optical and semiconductor materials including Fused Silica, BK7, Silicon, Silicon on Insulator, SOI, Germanium, Zinc Selenide, Calcium Fluoride and Magnesium Fluoride. Conventional polishing relies on controlling the shape of a polishing lab to adjust the entire surface of an optical element. In the hands of one of LightMachinery's master polishers, conventional hand polishing can achieve remarkable results but it has limitations. Conventional polishing can only adjust the basic parameters of wedge, sphere and astigmatism. Fluid jet polishing utilizes a small computer controlled polishing tool that removes material in a very slow but predictable pattern. Advanced software developed by LightMachinery enables the correction of wavefront errors to remove nanometers of material and achieve surfaces that are very close to perfect. Fluid jet polishing is enabling optical, nanostructural, microfluidics, Silicon on Insulator (SOI), MEMS, and semiconductor projects that were previously considered to be impossible.