Advanced engineering ceramics have been highlighted mainly owing to their superior hardness, corrosion/wear resistance, and thermal insulation performances. However, they are usually very difficult-to-cut because of their high brittleness. In light of this, ultra-precision machining has been studied to perform ductile-regime cutting in the machining of ceramics. Ductile-regime cutting can feature a smoother surface, and lower subsurface damage as the dominant material response during cutting showed ductile behavior. Researchers have investigated promoting ductileregime cutting to improve the machinability of ceramics. In this study, various coating materials were applied to the workpiece surface, and their effects on machinability improvements were explored. A total of 6 surface coatings and lubricants were applied to soda-lime glass. The critical depth of cut (CDC), the depth where the ductile-brittle transition (DBT) occurred, was increased in all coatings and lubricants, with an improved ductile cutting regime. Experimental results showed that solid coatings were more effective than liquid lubricants in enhancing the ductile cutting regime. It was thought that solid coatings induced an additional downward force by resisting material deformation and chip evacuation, thus contributing to suppression of crack opening. It is expected that this research can contribute to the machinability improvements of brittle materials.

Spectrally resolved interferometry (SRI) is an attractive technique to measure absolute distances without any moving components. In the spectral interferogram obtained by a spectrometer, the optical path difference (OPD) can simply be extracted from the linear slope of the spectral phase. However, SRI has a fundamental measuring range limitation due to maximum and minimum measurable distances. In addition, SRI cannot distinguish the OPD direction because the spectral interferogram is in the form of a natural sinusoidal function. In this investigation, we describe a direction determining SRI and propose the optimal conditions for determining OPD direction. Spectral phase nonlinearity, caused by a dispersive material, effects OPD direction but deteriorates spectral interferogram visibility. In the experiment, various phase nonlinearities were measured by adjusting the dispersive material (BK7) thickness. We observed the interferogram visibility and the possibility of direction determination. Based on the experimental results, the optimal dispersion conditions are provided to distinguish OPD directions of SRI.