So I was wondering about the whole lapping laboratory/workshop thing I had in mind for quite a while and I am wondering what the flatness requirement of plates would be to get the cashmir effect to work.
I read the separation between plates is under 10 nanometers, which is
0.000000393701 inches
For comparison, a AA surface plate is 0.0001 inches per meter or 0.0000055 per 2'' (seems like what you would imagine bench top experiment to be, looking how the pictures are presented)
So if I did the math right, the AA surface plate is only 14 times less accurate then necessary for giant 2 inch cashmir plates?
I know this is probobly really inaccurate but its surprisingly hard to find information on what this would look like, because of cookware websites.
Assuming you got something to AA grade surface plate level, how is it further flatened? I assume that the plates they made were made through some forms of self leveling molecular deposition or something.. no one actually managed to flatten something that far conventionally, have they? can you slowly peel off atoms using some kind of laser, zapper machine, etc? I was imagining a scanning ion beam that they can slowly grow things with high resolution by molecular bombardment... but I suppose maybe guidance is a problem (you get an uneven surface within the 'bombardment zone')
I say '14 times does not seem like alot' because I have no idea if lapping has some kind of catastrophic limit where it does not function anymore that makes "14 times" = infinity. Usually peoples interests go no further then gauge blocks, but this effect obviously shows the need for a flatter structure.