Our Capabilities

Cutting

Our staff has over 40 years of experience in cutting single crystal and ceramic materials. The cutting department is well equipped with a wide variety of cutting and sawing machines, each providing unique capabilities. For example, one of our diamond wheel ID saws uses a thin blade capable of cutting with only 0.008" of kerf. All of our multiband slurry saws can be fitted with bladepacks having spacing as narrow as 0.020" and as wide as 0.500". Material up to 4.5" high by 7.5" square can be cut, and we can accommodate materials as large as 10" in diameter. Our automated cutting and dicing capabilities can accurately fabricate parts smaller than 1.0 mm shipped individually, on wax, or mounted on different types of tape for use with automated handling equipment.

Lapping

Our lapping capabilities include both double-sided and single-sided laps. This flexibility gives us the ability to produce flat work down to 1/10th wave and to produce extremely thin pieces made to tight tolerances. We also offer a full range of surface finishes - from machine ground to 2 microinches. Boston Piezo-Optics also offers contract lapping of supplied ceramic materials.

X-Ray Orientation

We can provide x-ray orientation on any single crystal material. We have the ability to measure to 1 arc minute. The size can be as small as a few millimeters up to pieces in excess of 12" and weights in excess of 100 pounds.

Polishing

Our polishing capabilities meet or exceed industry standards. We can use traditional methods available such as pitch and high speed polishing. We also use a proprietary mechanical-chemical polishing process developed to produce a SAW polish on crystal quartz. Polished flatness to 1/20 wave, 1 arc second at 100:1 aspect ratio can be achieved. We have successfully adapted this process for use on several ceramic materials including alumina, lead zirconate titanate, lithium niobate and others. In crystal quartz, the mechanical-chemical polish produces a uniformly smooth surface with a minimum of surface dislocation and sub-surface damage.

Coating

BPO provides a wide range of coating methods and materials. We vapor deposit a variety of metals including chrome/gold, chrome/ silver, chrome, aluminum, copper and titanium for use as electrical contacts for electronic and electro-optic components. We can also provide single and multiple layer antireflection coatings. For more rugged applications we can apply four types of thick film coatings: palladium/silver, fired silver, fired gold, and platinum/gold. For low cost and non-line-of-sight applications, we can apply an electroless nickel, copper or gold coating to lead zirconate titanate, quartz and lithium niobate.

Machinery Available

General Electric XRD-1 X-Ray with Quartz Goniometer
Aremco Variable Speed Ceramic Drill
CNC Sonic Mill
Rotary Ultrasonic Drill
Capco Q-45 Automatic ID Saw
Sonic Mill
Ultrasonic Drill
Varian Wafering Machine
Model 686 Varian Wafering Machine
Model 7176 #11 Blanchard Surface Grinders
Boyar-Schultz Automatic Surface Grinders
CNC Bridgeport Surface Grinder
ELB Surface Grinding Machine
K.O. Lee Cylindrical Grinder
Kwik-Way Cylindrical Grinder
Millrite Core Drill
Strasbaugh Automatic Sphere Polishers, Custom Double-sided Lapping and Polishing Stations
Strasbaugh 16" Precision Polish Masters
CVC Vapor Deposition Coater
Varian Vapor Deposition Coaters
Model 843 200MHz Computer controlled Pulser Receiver
Hewlett-Packard 3577A Network Analyzer
Hewlett-Packard 4195A Network Analyzer
Lacroy Waverunner LT342 Oscilloscope
Nikon Model 6D Autocollimator
Sonix Material Characterization System
Zygo Interferometer with Automatic Fringe Data Reduction