Hossein Shahinian, Brigid Mullany
Small polymeric pad, and pitch polishing tools, are mainstream tools in deterministic polishing of precision optics. One drawback of such tools is that the pad or pitch is typically adhered to a rigid substrate, thus limiting their application to primarily planar and spherical workpiece geometries. In this paper a completely different approach is described; conventional tooling materials, i.e. pads and pitch, are replaced by polymeric fibers.