Trade parameters and relative advantages of beryllium, silicon carbide and Visible Quality (VQ) aluminum in terms of
the currently available optical finishing characteristics, as well as their physical and thermal characteristics are presented.
Combinations of constraints, environments, mount options and required performance may affect the choice between
these materials. Guidelines are provided which may help a designer evaluate choices based on the current state of the art.
To reduce the finishing costs of silicon carbide mirror substrates, silicon claddings are applied allowing the surfaces to
be more easily diamond turned and polished than the bare chemical vapor deposited (CVD) silicon carbide or bimodal
reaction bonded SiC (RB-SiC). The benefits of using silicon as the optical face will be reviewed as will the process for
applying plasma enhanced chemical vapor (PE-CVD) deposited amorphous silicon cladding on substrates. Using one
mirror as an example, the successful finishing results will be shared.
Silicon carbide structures fabricated by converting near-net-shape graphite preforms via Chemical Vapor Conversion (CVC) phase reaction have long provided improved performance components for electronics processing. In recent years, this same technology has been applied to the fabrication of simple and lightweighted mirrors and is moving into optical bench applications. To support the expanded applications, Poco has further evaluated the material properties of SUPERSiC® silicon carbide, developed technologies to mount silicon carbide mirrors on benches of similar and dissimilar materials, and fabricated complex monolithic geometries using in situ conversion bonding of mating graphite components. Overviews of each of these areas will be presented.
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