Phoenix Diamond Turning
Our diamond turning facility has grown to 6 single-point machines and a fly-cutter to support our customers’ growing demands for innovation and quality. This machining capacity is transformed into optical capability by a dedicated team of skilled technicians. We produce aspheric, free-form and diffractive surfaces in a variety of materials.

Materials Machined (partial list)

  • Germanium
  • Zinc Selenide, Zinc Sulfide & Cleartran®
  • Silicon
  • Acrylics, Zeonex® and polycarbonate
  • CaF2 & BaF2
  • Aluminum & copper
  • Ni-plated steel and Nibron
  • IR chalcogenide glass (AMTIR®, IG4, IG6)

Equipment & Capability

We employ the latest slow-tool servo technology on our 3-axis machines enabling us to produce non-rotationally symmetric surfaces including toroids, cylinders and free-forms. We can produce bi-aspheric lenses 1mm in size to hemispherical domes up to 350mm in diameter.

All our machines incorporate the latest hydrostatic slide-ways and linear motor technology. They are also fitted with heavy-duty spindles. The combination of equipment stability and skilled machinists lead to vastly improved form control and surface finishes on all materials. Phoenix is ISO 9001:2000 certified since 1997.

We have extensive metrology to ensure the demanding characterization of aspheric and hybrid surfaces. Surface profilometry is performed with our Talysurf PGI Series 2 and PGI 1240 instruments. Mild-departure aspheric surfaces can also be directly characterized using our Fisba phase-shifting interferometer. Our Talysurf CCI 3000A white light interferometer provides non-contact measurement of surface quality and diffractive features.

Phoenix Diamond Turning is supported by the in-house capabilities of Phoenix Optical Glass to generate blanks, produce custom tooling and polish non-diamond-turned surfaces.

phoenix diamond turning

We hold the following typical form and roughness tolerances. This table is meant only as a rough guide as actual specifications are strongly dependent upon component geometry:
Material Roughness (ra) Surface Form (um)
ZnS or Cleartran® 4 nm 0.25 to 0.6
ZnSe 5 nm 0.25 to 0.6
Germanium 3 nm 0.25 to 0.6
Silicon < 12 nm 0.4 to 0.6
Chalcogenide Glass 5 nm 0.25 to 0.6
CaF2 & BaF2 < 10 nm < 0.4
Acrylic 5 nm 0.3+
Zeonex ® 8 nm 0.3+
Polycarbonate < 10 nm 0.4+
Aluminum < 8 nm 0.125 to 1.0
Other Metals 3 to 8 nm 0.3 to 1.0
Values based on measurements performed with our Talysurf CCI white light interferometer.

For additional information on Phoenix Diamond Turning please visit www.phoenix-dt.co.uk.

ITAR NOTE:
Naked Optics Corp is registered with the US Dept of State. In 2004, the USDS approved a 10-year Technical Assistance Agreement (TAA) between NOC and Phoenix Optical Glass. We comply with all applicable International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Please contact NOC for further information regarding our TAA and ITAR adherence.