Bridging the Divide Between Iterative Optical Polishing and Automation

David Walker, Juan I. Ahuir-Torres, Yasemin Akar, Paul A. Bingham, Xun Chen, Michal Darowski, Oliver Fähnle, Philippe Gambron, Frankie F. Jackson, Hongyu Li, Luke Mason, Rakesh Mishra, Abdullah Shahjalal, Guoyu Yu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Several recent business reports have described the global growth in demand for optical and photonic components, paralleled by technical reports on the growing shortage of skilled manufacturing staff to meet this demand. It is remarkable that producing ultraprecision surfaces remains so dependent on people, in contrast to other sectors of the economy, e.g., car manufacturing. Clearly, training can play some role, but ultimately, only process automation can provide the solution. This paper explores why automation is a challenge and summarizes multidisciplinary work aiming to assemble the building blocks required to realize automation.

Original languageEnglish
Article number26
Number of pages22
JournalNanomanufacturing and Metrology
Volume6
Issue number1
Early online date21 Jul 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2023

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