Material removal utilizing electrokinetic phenomenon on amorphous aluminium surfaces

Abstract

To satisfy the global market demand in producing ever-smaller scales devices with higher dimensional accuracy and functional efficiency, material removal in nanometric level has become a huge interest and a great challenge. In order to have higher performance and reliability of miniaturized devices, there is a need to either improve the present machining techniques or develop novel material removal techniques for better machining capability.

Recently, a non-contact material removal process which utilizes the electrokinetic phenomenon to remove material in the order of nanometers on gold material was proposed. Owing to the fact that aluminium is the most widely used material and its versatility in manufacturing industry, aluminium hence become the experimental material in this project to show the feasibility in the same material removal process phenomenon instead of gold material only.