Fabrication of off-axis aspheric surfaces using a slow tool servo

Off-axis aspheric surfaces have been widely applied in optical systems, but it is difficult to fabricate this kind of optical surface with high quality. Slow tool servo is one of the methods for turning off-axis aspheric surfaces on-axis, which have a large travel range without an additional device. This paper presents a theoretical and experimental investigation on the 3D surface generation in single point diamond tuning using slow tool servo. The form error of off-axis paraboloid caused by tool centering error is analyzed and verified by cutting experiment. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.