TY - GEN
T1 - Experimental investigation and characterization of nanoscale dry electro-machining
AU - Jahan, Muhammad P.
AU - Malshe, Ajay P.
AU - Rajurkar, Kamlakar P.
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - This paper presents an experimental investigation and characterization of a novel technique of nanoscale electro-machining (EM) in atmospheric air, named dry nano-EM, by using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) as the platform for nanomachining. The electro-machining has been conducted in near field by maintaining a gap distance of 1-2 nm between the Platinum-Iridium [Pt-Ir (80:20)] tool electrode and atomically flat gold substrate with the air as dielectric medium. An in-situ process of evaluating the tool quality before and after machining has been used by monitoring the current-displacement (I-Z) spectroscopy curves. The mechanism of dry nano-EM has been presented as well as the machining performance of the process has been evaluated. Based on the observations, it has been established that field induced evaporation due to intense heat generated at the gap width is the primary mechanism of material removal in dry nano-EM. The experimental results show that dry nano-EM is capable of fabricating consistent nano-features with good repeatability. The volume of material removal increases almost linearly with increasing number of features machined and machining time, indicating the consistency in the dimensions of the nano-features. Finally, dry nano-EM is established as a technique capable of machining 50-100 features in a pre-defined manner with average feature size of 7.5-10 nm in a single pass, thus suitable for nano-patterning in atomically flat electrically conducting surfaces.
AB - This paper presents an experimental investigation and characterization of a novel technique of nanoscale electro-machining (EM) in atmospheric air, named dry nano-EM, by using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) as the platform for nanomachining. The electro-machining has been conducted in near field by maintaining a gap distance of 1-2 nm between the Platinum-Iridium [Pt-Ir (80:20)] tool electrode and atomically flat gold substrate with the air as dielectric medium. An in-situ process of evaluating the tool quality before and after machining has been used by monitoring the current-displacement (I-Z) spectroscopy curves. The mechanism of dry nano-EM has been presented as well as the machining performance of the process has been evaluated. Based on the observations, it has been established that field induced evaporation due to intense heat generated at the gap width is the primary mechanism of material removal in dry nano-EM. The experimental results show that dry nano-EM is capable of fabricating consistent nano-features with good repeatability. The volume of material removal increases almost linearly with increasing number of features machined and machining time, indicating the consistency in the dimensions of the nano-features. Finally, dry nano-EM is established as a technique capable of machining 50-100 features in a pre-defined manner with average feature size of 7.5-10 nm in a single pass, thus suitable for nano-patterning in atomically flat electrically conducting surfaces.
KW - Dry nano-EM
KW - Machining performance
KW - Nano-electro machining (nano-EM)
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84869767105
SN - 9781622762477
T3 - Transactions of the North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME
SP - 646
EP - 655
BT - 40th North American Manufacturing Research Conference 2012 - Transactions of the North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME
T2 - 40th Annual North American Manufacturing Research Conference, NAMRC40
Y2 - 4 June 2012 through 8 June 2012
ER -