Optical and medical industries are demanding a large variety of optical elements exhibiting complex geometries and multiple opto-functional areas in the range of a few millimetres [1]. Therefore, mold inserts made of steel or carbides must be finished by polishing for the replication of glass and plastic optics [2]. Due to the mold insert's complex geometry, state-of-the art fabrication is still a time consuming and hence an expensive manual polishing process. In this paper the authors present the development of a new abrasive polishing process for finishing complex mold geometries to optical quality. First, the vibration polishing concept and a classification of applicable vibration motions with their feasibility for the machining of certain geometries will be presented. In the following, the modification of a conventional polishing machine is presented.
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