Micromachining technology is a very flexible process, which can produce micro components with complex shapes. In addition, it can be applied to a wide range of materials. Its adaptability makes it especially suitable for rapid operation from idea to prototype, manufacturing of complex 3D structures, and iterative product design and development,
1. Physical micromachining technology
Laser beam processing: a processing process that uses the heat energy guided by the laser beam to remove materials from metal or non-metal surfaces. It is more suitable for brittle materials with low conductivity, but it can be used for most materials.
Ion beam processing: an important unconventional manufacturing technology for micro / nano manufacturing. It uses the accelerated ion flow in the vacuum chamber to remove, add or modify the atoms on the surface of the object.
2. Chemical micromachining technology
Reactive ion etching (RIE): a plasma process in which substances are excited by RF discharge to etch substrates or films in a low-voltage chamber. It is a synergistic process of chemical active substances and high-energy ion bombardment.
Electrochemical machining (ECM): a method of removing metals by electrochemical processes. It is usually used for large-scale production and processing of extremely hard materials or materials that are difficult to be processed by traditional methods. Its use is limited to conductive materials. ECM can cut small or irregular angles, complex contours or cavities in hard and rare metals.
3. Mechanical micromachining technology
Diamond turning: the process of turning or machining precision components with a lathe or derivative machine equipped with natural or synthetic diamond bit.
Diamond milling: a cutting process that can be used to generate an aspheric lens array by circular cutting using a spherical diamond tool.
Precision grinding: an abrasive machining that allows the workpiece to be machined into a fine surface finish and a very close tolerance of 0.0001 ".
Polishing: an abrasive processing, argon ion beam polishing is a fairly stable process, which is used for finishing telescope mirrors and correcting residual errors of mechanical polishing or diamond turning optical devices. MRF process is the first deterministic polishing process. Commercialized and used in the production of aspheric lenses, reflectors, etc.
