Fracture and material removal mechanisms from rough grinding to polishing

When manufacturing optical surfaces in brittle materials, it is often convenient to estimate the quality of the resulting surface without extensive manufacturing experiments. Such estimates include the rate of material removal, as well as typical measures of surface quality, for example surface roughness and subsurface damage. In addition, the ground surface may be in a state of residual stress which will induce an overall curvature to an optical component, especially if its aspect ratio is large. These attributes of optics manufacturing can be estimated by using a few mechanical properties of the brittle material being ground or polished.