Sintered Silicon Carbide Mirror Substrates Surface Finishing for Embedded Applications

Stiffness is the main reason to use SiC as a mirror substrate for aerospace applications. Also the SiC mechanical and thermal properties are superior to the optical material that is normally used for those applications. In this work, diamond tools and pastes were applied to obtain flat small diameter mirror substrates. The goals were to obtain flatness of λ/10 and Ra roughness of λ/100, for visible light.