Stainless Steel / Microstructures / Microfabrication / Electrochemistry / Short Voltage PulsesApplication of ultrashort voltage pulses to a tiny tool electrode under suitable electrochemical conditions enables precise three-dimensional machining of stainless steel. In order to reach submicrometer precision and high processing speed, the formation of a passive layer on the workpiece surface during the machining process has to be prevented by proper choice of the electrolyte. Mixtures of concentrated hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acid are well suited in this respect and allow the automated machining of complicated three-dimensional microelements. The dependence of the machining precision on pulse duration and pulse amplitude was investigated in detail.
We show that complex patterns including three-dimensional structures, lines, curved features, and arrays can be machined in substrates in single-step processing without the need for rastering. High-aspect-ratio nanometer accurate features were machined in nickel using ultrashort voltage pulse electrochemical machining. Experiments were conducted with two different tool shapes. The first was a combination of rrectangles, squares, and a half circle; the second was a 2x2 array. The effect of pulse duration and electrolyte concentration on feature resolution was studied. Structures with 90 nm widths were made by applying 2 ns voltage pulses
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