Development of Ultra-Precision Grinding Machine for Grazing Incidence X-Ray Mirrors.

In order to fabricate grazing incidence X-ray mirrors made of hard and brittle CVD-SiC, a large 5 axis control ultra-precision grinding machine has been developed. The machine must be capable of generating non-axisymmetric aspheric surfaces by ductile grinding. So as to obtain precise profile accuracy, new mechanisms such as flexible coupling, guide rails with fine deformation mechanism and leveling blocks for correcting warp of guide rails are applied to hydrostatic linear slideways. As experimental results, excellent straightness of X axis slide of 0.05 μm in a 500mm traverse is obtained on the grinding machine. Non-axisymmetric aspheric mirrors have been ground within a profile error of 0.9μm with the machine.