Micro-laser assisted single point diamond turning of fused silica glass

In this paper, experimental results on single point diamond turning (SPDT) of fused silica glass, using the mu-LAM process is reported. It is shown that with a certain combination of tooling geometry, coolant, and laser beam power, surfaces with roughness values of 20 nm - 30 nm RMS can be achieved. Such surfaces are obtained with spindle speeds of 1000 RPM. All the experiments are done on planar samples. For tool machining track lengths greater than 3 km, a tool wear-land of 10 mu m on the flank face of the tool was observed.