Fabrication of micro strucutre by ultrahigh precision cutting

微制造技术，即所谓的“微机械”，是从基于大规模集成电路制造技术的硅片上的光刻技术开始的。这些技术在制造三维厚结构方面存在困难。该研究项目旨在利用超高精度切割技术制造三维结构，这与其他制造方法有很大的不同。项目期间的研究成果可以概括为以下几点：硬材料微结构的加工。采用钨、陶瓷、蓝宝石等硬质合金材料，在超高四轴联动机床上进行了精密金刚石砂轮的加工实验。通过加工直径小于100微米的圆柱体形状的钨棒，估计其端部半径小于1微米，从而证明了超高精度切割技术在微结构制造中的有效性。

Micro fabrication technologies, so called "Micromachines", have started from photolithographic techinques on silicon wafers based on the technologies of LSI fabrication. Those technologies have the difficulties in manufacturing three dimensional thick structures. The research project is aiming for fabrication of three dimensional structures using ultrahigh precision cuting techniques, which is quite different from other fabrication methods.Results of reseach during the project terms can be summed up as follows.Machininig of micro structures of hard materials. Hard materials like tungsten, ceramics and sapphires are suitable for micro tools used in the micro fabrication by ultrahigh precision cutting.The machining experiments are carried out with precision diamonod griniding wheel using ultrahigh 4-axis machine tool. Rod of tungsten are machined in the shape of cylinder with diameter less than 100 micrometer and the radius of end of the tip is estimated to be smaller than 1 micromenter.Through those results, it has proved that ultrahigh precision cutting techniques are quite effective in micro structure-fabrication.