Modulated diamond cutting for the generation of complicated micro/nanofluidic channels

Abstract

A novel modulated diamond cutting (MDC) technique is proposed for the generation of complicated micro/nanofluidic channels. The MDC adopts a turning configuration through a four-axis ultra-precision diamond lathe, a motion modulation based milling operation is introduced by extending the virtual spindle technique. This unique principle makes the MDC more suitable to generate micro/nanofluidic channels through compromising certain inherent advantages of both diamond turning and milling. Moreover, taking advantage of axial servo motion modulation as well as tool mark modulation using the re-cutting e↵ect, complicated channels can be e↵ectively generated having spatially-varying shapes as well as hierarchical micro/nanostructures. Through both numerical simulation and experimental cutting, capability and outperformance of the MDC are demonstrated well. The result suggests that the MDC is capable to generate ultra-smooth channel surfaces with complicated shapes and superimposed surface nanostructures, exhibiting significant superiority for the generation of micro/nanofluidic channels with high flexibility, high e ciency, and high universality.

Dual-Axial Tool Servo Diamond Turning of Hierarchical Micro-Nano-Structured Surfaces

“…Although different machining parameters may be applied in the turning process, the basic principles of the toolpath determination algorithm still are the same [24,27]. In addition, the toolpath generated in this paper is smooth, and the used motion frequency is far less than the elliptical vibration.…”

“…Therefore, the modulated assisted vibration has the potential to fabricate various secondary structures [26]. For instance, the ultra-precision diamond turning can be modulated into the process like milling for fabricating the micro/nano channels with different bottom surface [27]. The micro/nano sculpturing with modulated elliptical vibration can form grooves with several waves [28], and the variational secondary structures may bring functional differences for different areas of the primary surface [29].…”

Advances in the design and manufacturing of novel freeform optics

“…UPM is a high-speed machining process where the tooltip is of diamond and the cutting tool is fixed on and rotated with the spindle. This machining technique is used to create microstructures [117] and channels [118] for various applications such as biomedical, imaging and lighting. The surface quality of freeform surfaces is dependent on the critical process factors such as spindle rotational motion errors, vibrations caused by motion drives, feed rate, spindle speed, geometry of the tool and material factors i.e.…”

Design and Implementation of Ultrasonic Impact Peening-Based Device for Stainless Steel Surface Texture Fabrication

“…In addition, it is also challenging for LST to fabricate shallow textures in sub-micron range of feature size while maintaining high precision, and the cost of related equipment is relatively high [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. Recently, ultra-precision diamond machining methods have also been proposed to fabricate high-precision surface textures [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]. In particular, due to the significant thermal diffusion between carbon and iron, this may cause severe thermochemical tool wear, therefore reducing machining accuracy.…”