Development of a new laser conditioning method for ultra-fine grit diamond wheels

This paper reports a new laser conditioning method for micro-wheels with ultra-fine grit diamond, which are used for the micro grinding of micro-aspherical optics. Resinoid-bonded micro-wheels with ultra-fine grit diamonds are used for micro grinding. Such small wheels have the problem of poor ground surface roughness due to their few effective cutting edges and low peripheral speeds. In the present work, new truing and dressing methods are proposed to produce many effective cutting edges. The new method uses the third harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser, which is suitable for processing resinoid bond material. It was found that a SD1500B wheel treated using the new method had a higher cutting edge density than one treated using a conventional method, the cup truer method. A good surface roughness was obtained using the new method.