Machining technique for optical crystals with single point diamond turning tool is reported in tills paper. The main factors influencing the machined surface quality are discovered and regularities of machining process are drawn. Optical crystals have found more and more important applications in the field of modern optics. Optical crystals are mostly brittle materials of poor machinability The traditional machining method is polishing which has many shortcomings such as low production efficiency, poor ability to be automatically controlled and edge effect of the workpiece. SPDT has been widely used in manufacturing optical reflectors of non-ferrous metals such as aluminum and copper which are easy to be machined for their proper ductility. But optical crystals being discussed here are characterized by their high brittleness which makes it difficult to obtain high quality optical surfaces on them. The purpose of our research is to find the optimum machining conditions for ductile cutting of optical crystals and apply the SPDT technique to the manufacturing of ultra precision optical components of brittle materials. As a result, the cutting force is steady, the cutting force range is 0.05-0.08N. The surface roughness is good when spindle is above 1400rpm, and feed rate is small. The influence of depth of cut is very small.