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A diamond-like carbon (DLC) film, coated on an SKD11 (alloy tool steel) substrate, was shaped by plasma oxidation to form an assembly of DLC macro-pillars and to be used as a DLC-punch array that is micro-embossed into aluminum sheets. First, the SKD11 steel die substrate was prepared and DLC-coated to have a film thickness of 10 μm. This DLC coating worked as a punch material. The two-dimensional micro-patterns were printed onto this DLC film by maskless lithography. The unprinted DLC films were selectively removed by plasma oxidation to leave the three-dimensional DLC-punch array on the SKD11 substrate. Each DLC punch had a head of 3.5 μm × 3.5 μm and a height of 8 μm. This DLC-punch array was fixed into the cassette die set for a micro-embossing process using a table-top servo-stamper. Furthermore, through numerically controlled micro-embossing, an alignment of rectangular punches was transcribed into a micro-cavity array in the aluminum sheet. The single micro-cavity had a bottom surface of 3.2 μm × 3.2 μm and an average depth of 7.5 μm. A heat-transfer experiment in boiling water was also performed to investigate the effect of micro-cavity texture on bubbling behavior and the boiling curve.

A droplet free metallic plasma source is promising for enhanced adhesion of films with a smooth coating surface. This paper concerns a highly ionized metallic plasma source using a pulsed Penning discharge. A high‐power pulsed sputtering (HPPS) glow discharge plasma is generated using electric‐ and magnetic‐field interactions. The metallic species are sputtered by the energetic argon ion bombardment, followed by their ionization in as short as approximately 3 μs. The plasma source is compact in size (approximately 60 × 60 × 60 mm3) and the plasma is arc‐free. The glow plasma is generated at a gap with a length of 10 mm. The magnetic field at the gap is approximately 0.3 T. A pulsed power source with a rectangular‐shaped voltage‐output is used. Fundamental electrical and optical characteristics are obtained. The glow voltage and current are approximately –0.43 kV and 37 A at 30 μs, respectively, which corresponds to a peak power of approximately 16 kW, where the applied voltage –1.2 kV and a current limiting series resistance is 20 Ω. The consumed energy is approximately 0.41 J, which corresponds to an average power of 250 W at a repetition rate of 625 Hz. The power and energy are changed by circuit conditions. In order to increase the consumed power, the current limiting‐resistance is decreased to be 3 Ω, the peak power is increased to approximately 70 kW with a power density of 2.9 kW/cm2, where a current density is 4.5 A/cm2. The ambient gas is argon at a pressure of 2 Pa. In the emission spectra, singly‐ and doubly‐ionized titanium ions are observed, following the generation of argon ions, which shows the ionization of sputtered titanium species. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

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The plasma oxidation printing (POP) was proposed as a digital manufacturing to shape the diamond-like carbon (DLC) thick film into a micronozzle on the tool steel substrate. Its head shape was first designed by computer-aided design (CAD) and printed onto DLC film by the maskless lithography. The unprinted DLC was removed in depth by the anisotropic etching. Fine circular nozzle with the inner diameter of 10 μm and the height of 10 μm was fabricated during the duration time of 3.6 ks. Different from the micromilling or the micro-electric discharging, the micronozzle geometry is directly fabricated from its CAD data. The micronozzle with the cross-star outlet was constructed without the change of processing procedure and without use of tooling.