Optical glass surfaces polishing by cerium oxide particles

The use of powders in metallic oxides as means of grinding and polishing of the optical glass components have seen recently a large application in optical industry. In fact, cerium oxide abrasive is more used in the optical glass polishing. It is used as grains abrasive in suspension or fixed abrasive (pellets); these pellets are manufactured from a mixture made of cerium oxide abrasive and a organic binder. The cerium oxide used in the experiments is made by (Logitech USA) of 99% purity, the average grain size of the particle is 300 nm, the density being 6,74 g/cm(3) and the specific surface is 3,3042 m(2)/g. In this study, we are interested in the surfaces quality of the optical glass borosilicate crown (BK7) polished by particles in cerium oxide bounded by epoxy. The surfaces of the optical glass treated are characterized by the roughness, the flatness by using the microscope Zygo and the SEM.