Glass Polishing & Lapping

Apr 24,2023

Optical Glass Polishing Services, Precision Lapping & Polishing Services | Precision Lapping Service and Precision Polishing Services

Lapping and polishing are processes designed to remove material from a work piece to achieve a desirable surface finish, dimension, shape or combination of these characteristics. The similarities between lapping and polishing are in the fact that they both use an abrasive in an oil or water based carrier, a vehicle to carry the compound to the work piece and the removal of material from the work piece to achieve the desired finish. The main difference between lapping and polishing is the amount of material being removed and the final appearance of the work piece. Lapping can remove much more material and leaves a dull matte finish, while polishing removes a small amount of material and leaves a bright, reflective finish.
Precision lapping and polishing services of all materials, whether hard or soft, have been the specialties of VY Optics. Other precision machining services include diamond dicing and cutting, grinding, 4 Axis CNC machining, and optical polishing.

Custom flat lapping and precision polishing of all types of materials from a single piece to millions of pieces, on both customer supplied and on our own supplied materials are the specialty of VY Optoelectronics design.
Based on our extensive experience with a wide variety of Optical Glasses and Fused Silica, to hard Ceramics and Sapphire, we can provide lapping and polishing services on almost anything.

We have developed multitudes of special processes to solve your unique problems as part of the extraordinary service that we provide our customers. ISO 9001:2017 certified, all our processes have been carefully documented and are repeatable, so that once you have received a quality product from VY Optoelectronics that meets your specifications, you can depend on a consistent production throughput.
We can also polish the edges of windows and squares. Windows, plates and substrates are routinely processed in batch runs at competitive rates.
A large proportion of our contract polishing and lapping work is carried out to customer-supplied materials.

Precision Lapping

Our lapping services include all optical materials and glasses, as well as metals, alloys and alumina. Using double-sided planetary machines, we focus on components when both sides need lapping to precision tolerances. Surfaces are lapped simultaneously whilst held in carriers, removing the need for fixing or clamping, and ensuring a stress free lapping process for the components without thermal distortion.

Following is a partial materials precision lapped and polished sized from as small as 0.127mm square to 1000mm.
99.8% Fused Silica and Fused Quartz wafers, Optical Glass windows, Precision Glass and Ceramic shims and spacers, Aluminum, Ceramics, composite materials, BK7 windows, filter glasses and all other types of glasses, Germanium wafers, Znic Selenide, BaF, CaF, MgO, Sapphire windows and substrates, Silicon Wafers and windows, Borosilicate Glass,Lithium Tantalate wafers, Lithium Niobate wafer, Zerodur. We lap and polish customer supplied materials as well as our own supplied materials, and parts may be custom sized, or standard sized based on your requirements. VY has an extensive inventory of thousands of finished wafers and substrates in stock.