Micro and Nanosystems - Volume 3, Issue 3, 2011

It has been recognised for several years that MNT enabled products will be an important part of the industrial and manufacturing future of developed countries, exploiting the possibilities for functionality, mobility and intelligence in devices that a new generation of materials and components can offer. To realise this potential, it is necessary for multi-function multimaterial products to advance from laboratory test Read More

Due to technological advantages of plastics it is increasingly possible to substitute the material glass in case of optical applications. Injection-compression moulding features a high potential particularly with regard to a production of high quality lenses made of plastics. Because of the significant volumetric shrinkage the replication of thick-walled plastics lenses is a serious challenge for the production process. By the ch Read More

Electroforming is a surprisingly versatile process which is being utilised for production of a number of very different metallic products. The two main reasons for the exploitation of electroforming are the remarkable replication accuracy and the ability to grow seamless metallic products. In this paper the most important types of electroforming processes are discussed, along with the expected properties of the deposits and the c Read More

The European project MULTILAYER is focused on the mass-production of micro devices by using several different layers which are individually structured and treated and then ultimately assembled. Among the main goals of this project, is the development of 3D structuring of thin tapes which contain nanosized or very fine grained powders as well as tapes with UV-curable binder systems by means of almost room tempe Read More

This paper is focused on modelling and validation of cutting forces and process stability in micro-milling of Ti6Al4V alloy. The micro-milling cutting forces are determined by a model developed by the authors. The model consists of integrating predicted cutting forces from finite element (FE) model of orthogonal cutting described by non-liner equation with an uncut chip thickness model considering the full kinematics of the cu Read More

Glass cutting is an essential step in the production of display panel use in the Flat Panel Display (FPD) technology, lightweight PC and cellular phone touch panel. Due to the brittle and poor thermal conduction, high quality glass cutting becomes a challenging manufacturing process. Possibilities to produce quality glass cutting (Corning Eagle2000) of thin thickness ranging from 0.7mm to 0.5mm using pico-second (ps) laser pulses ar Read More

Micro electrical discharge machining in the milling configuration (µEDM milling) allows machining of complex microparts in a flexible way by controlling the erosion process along the 3D path of a thin cylindrical microtool. This technique is attracting growing interest for the processing of mesoscopic and/or high aspect ratio parts. A bottleneck in the development of this technology is the fabrication of thin diameter tools wi Read More

Polymer parts with superhydrophobic surfaces are currently produced by injection moulding and subsequent surface processing within complex process chains by plasma treatment, etching or special coatings. An innovative approach is to mould the plastics part and create the surface functionality in one single step using a variothermal injection moulding process. For the precise moulding of such microstructured surfac Read More

Injection moulding is the main manufacturing technology in micro system technology for the production of complex micro parts made of plastics. Joining steps in the process chain performed after the injection moulding process requires occasionally special part features, like absorbable elements for laser welding or energy directors for ultrasonic welding. Due to the already small parts, these features are even smaller. In Read More

There is need for less expensive and rapid tooling for prototyping components and systems in thermoplastics using microreplication technique such as injection moulding. This paper presents the adaptation of a conventional injection moulding process using a microstructured silicon mould insert. Microstructures with aspect ratio of 4 were produced by a two-step dry etching process of deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) and reactive Read More

The paper presents the design concept of automatic CD-based polymer microfluidic device for single cell immobilization applicable for use in robotic system for microinjection of substances into cells. The device is also provided for use as a standalone system for cell immobilization for their research and to carry out various micro- manipulations with cells. Key role in the functioning of the device plays a CD-based polym Read More

This paper describes the application of design patterns in a case study on microsystems development. The case study was conducted in the scope of the Collaborative Research Centre 499 (SFB 499). The SFB 499 aims at developing new production technologies for prototyping and mass-production of microsystems. These production technologies (e.g. Micro Powder Injection Moulding or Micro Casting) allow processing a v Read More

This paper introduces a simple costing methodology adopted in a European research project for comparing the cost of alternative manufacturing routes when designing new innovative micro and nano products. This methodology has been specifically developed to assess the product development implication of emerging manufacturing technologies, which might still be under development in research labs. To illustrate Read More

The paper introduces a methodology for accuracy estimation of micro stereo lithography and micro milling processes. The experimental procedure is a combination of producing simple test parts, routine measurement by optical metrology equipment, and computerised calculations and visualisation by purpose made software. The accuracy and precision of the process are revealed after calculating the linear and shear st Read More