Manufacturing technologies toward extreme precision

TLDR

Precision is crucial in manufacturing, as high precision yields high quality, performance, exchangeability, reliability, and added value, and recent advances have pushed form accuracy to the nanometer scale and surface roughness to the atomic level, enabling high‑performance optical elements, semiconductor substrates, and biomedical parts. This review examines state‑of‑the‑art high‑precision material‑removal technologies—ultraprecision cutting, grinding, deterministic form‑correction polishing, and supersmooth polishing—comparing their principles, methodologies, and applications, and discusses key issues for future R&D in extreme precision manufacturing. The paper analyzes the underlying principles and methodologies of these technologies, highlighting how each process achieves nanometer‑level form accuracy and atomic‑level surface roughness through precise material removal and deterministic correction.

Abstract

Abstract Precision is one of the most important aspects of manufacturing. High precision creates high quality, high performance, exchangeability, reliability, and added value for industrial products. Over the past decades, remarkable advances have been achieved in the area of high-precision manufacturing technologies, where the form accuracy approaches the nanometer level and surface roughness the atomic level. These extremely high precision manufacturing technologies enable the development of high-performance optical elements, semiconductor substrates, biomedical parts, and so on, thereby enhancing the ability of human beings to explore the macro- and microscopic mysteries and potentialities of the natural world. In this paper, state-of-the-art high-precision material removal manufacturing technologies, especially ultraprecision cutting, grinding, deterministic form correction polishing, and supersmooth polishing, are reviewed and compared with insights into their principles, methodologies, and applications. The key issues in extreme precision manufacturing that should be considered for future R&D are discussed.