Basic study on polishing technology for microcavity with electrically controlled slurry

Optical microcavity, which can localize light at a certain spot for a short period of time, have a wide range of applications, such as optical signal processing and optical frequency combs. Single crystal calcium fluoride is one of the most suitable material for fabricating optical microcavity due to its excellent optical properties; however, it cannot be manufactured by chemical processes such as etching due to its crystal anisotropy. Currently, high performance optical microcavities are fabricated by ultra-precision turning followed by a hand polishing process because it has complex shape with a size of micro order. However, hand polishing deteriorates the shape made by ultra-precision turning and has a low reproductivity. Therefore, a development of a soft mechanical polishing method to replace hand polishing is strongly desired. Electrically controlled slurry technique is a promising approach in polishing of microparts, where AC electric field is applied to the slurry in order to control the distribution of abrasives to improve the polishing properties in free abrasive polishing. In this study, polishing by applying electrically controlled slurry was conducted for microcavity and the influence of frequency and applied voltage were investigated. From the experimental results, clear differences in the surface quality of microcavity were shown according to amplitude of AC voltage and its frequency.