ABSTRACT
Polishing of optical components could be termed the supreme discipline in optics manufacturing. The polishing process and its results depend on a large number of interacting and influencing variables and parameters. These variables and parameters arise from the polishing machine used, the applied process parameters, the polishing tool, the polishing agent, and the work piece itself. The polishing techniques applied for this challenge can be categorized in different ways on the basis of the predominant mechanism, the size of the processed area, or the approach/method applied for polishing. A theoretical description of polishing optical glasses is a complex task, since such polishing processes are based on different interacting mechanisms. These mechanisms are characterized by the so-called removal hypothesis, the flow hypothesis, the chemical hypothesis, and the fretting hypothesis. Classical or conventional polishing is known as full lap polishing. Several unconventional polishing methods are available for subaperture correction or aspherization by zonal machining.
