The POLARIS facility has a total of 6 polishing machines and several glass-machining tools.
Polishing machines:
- double motorized polishing machine for diameters up to 450mm
- 2 manual polishing machines for diameters up to 450mm
- 1 polishing machine dedicated to the manufacturing of VCM (variable curvature mirrors) for the delay lines of the VLTI mode of the ESO VLT
- 1 polishing machine for diameters up to 1200mm
- 1 polishing machine for diameters up to 1000mm.
Glass-machining tools:
- edging and spherical generator machine
- saw with diamond circular disc for glass cutting
- glass-drilling machine
To measure radii of curvature, surface form error, roughness and aspect-cosmetics of optical surfaces, the facility uses in routine state-of-art equipments.
- surface form error measurement: 3 Fizeau phase-shifting interferometers with 100mm diameters and reference spheres (plane, f/1.5, f/3, f/10, f/23); 4D Technologies Accufiz (mounted on an optical ruler), Intellium Z100 (mounted on an optical ruler), ESDI H2000 (with simultaneous phase-shifting and integrated attenuator)
- radii of curvature measurement: spherometers and radii-of-curvature benches
- aspect/cosmetics: digital microscope Keyence VHX-7000 with objective x2000, binoculars, scratch-dig standards
- roughness: white-light interferential microscope WYKO NT-9100.
