Yindi Cai

Ductile cutting of silicon microstructures with surface inclination measurement and compensation by using a force sensor integrated single point diamond tool

This paper presents a measurement and compensation method of surface inclination for ductile cutting of silicon microstructures by using a diamond tool with a force sensor based on a four-axis ultra-precision lathe. The X- and Y-directional inclinations of a single crystal silicon workpiece with respect to the X- and Y-motion axes of the lathe slides were measured respectively by employing the diamond tool as a touch-trigger probe, in which the tool-workpiece contact is sensitively detected by monitoring the force sensor output. Based on the measurement results, fabrication of silicon microstructures can be thus carried out directly along the tilted silicon workpiece by compensating the cutting motion axis to be parallel to the silicon surface without time-consuming pre-adjustment of the surface inclination or turning of a flat surface. A diamond tool with a negative rake angle was used in the experiment for superior ductile cutting performance. The measurement precision by using the diamond tool as a touch-trigger probe was investigated. Experiments of surface inclination measurement and ultra-precision ductile cutting of a micro-pillar array and a micro-pyramid array with inclination compensation were carried out respectively to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.

Measurement of six-degree-of-freedom planar motions by using a multiprobe surface encoder

Abstract. A multiprobe surface encoder for optical metrology of six-degree-of-freedom (six-DOF) planar motions is presented. The surface encoder is composed of an XY planar scale grating with identical microstructures in X- and Y-axes and an optical sensor head. In the optical sensor head, three paralleled laser beams were used as laser probes. After being divided by a beam splitter, the three laser probes were projected onto the scale grating and a reference grating with identical microstructures, respectively. For each probe, the first-order positive and negative diffraction beams along the X- and Y-directions from the scale grating and from the reference grating superimposed with each other and four pieces of interference signals were generated. Three-DOF translational motions of the scale grating Δx, Δy, and Δz can be obtained simultaneously from the interference signals of each probe. Three-DOF angular error motions θX, θY, and θZ can also be calculated simultaneously from differences of displacement output variations and the geometric relationship among the three probes. A prototype optical sensor head was designed, constructed, and evaluated. Experimental results verified that this surface encoder could provide measurement resolutions of subnanometer and better than 0.1 arc sec for three-DOF translational motions and three-DOF angular error motions, respectively.

Molecular dynamics simulation of elastic–plastic deformation associated with tool–workpiece contact in force sensor–integrated fast tool servo:

The tool–workpiece interactions when a single-point diamond cutting tool with specific tool edge geometry is made to contact with a copper workpiece are evaluated by the molecular dynamics simulations under different temperatures, boundary conditions and model sizes for ultra-precision microcutting and in-process surface form measurement based on a force sensor–integrated fast tool servo. It is confirmed that the proposed multi-relaxation time method is effective to stabilize the workpiece molecular dynamics model over a wide temperature range up to the room temperature under which a practical microcutting and on-machine surface form metrology process are conducted. The boundary condition and model size of the molecular dynamics model are then optimized to make reliable and cost-effective simulations for evaluation of the elastic–plastic transition contact depth and the corresponding contact force when a diamond tool with a practical edge sharpness of up to 30 nm is employed for microcutting and on-machine surface form metrology.

Molecular dynamics simulation of form measurement process of soft materials using atomic force microscope

Molecular dynamics simulations of contact mode form measurement process on a soft substrate with a special surface profile using a diamond AFM tip are preformed to investigate the contact behavior and the surface profile damages or distortions of the measured substrate. The process of contact mode imaging of the AFM can be treated as the process of nano-scratching. The simulation-predicted interaction force, including scratching force and normal force, characterizes the saw-tooth pattern, which is referred to as atomic stick-slips. The shape of measured substrate surface, especially the surface underneath the AFM tip, is distorted by the interaction force between the AFM tip and the substrate surface.

Fabrication of two-dimensional micro patterns for adaptive optics by using laser interference lithography

This paper presents a fabrication method of two-dimensional micro patterns for adaptive optics with a micrometric or sub-micrometric period to be used for fabrication of micro lens array or two-dimensional diffraction gratings. A multibeam two-axis Lloyd’s mirror interferometer is employed to carry out laser interference lithography for the fabrication of two-dimensional grating structures. In the proposed instrument, the optical setup consists of a light source providing a laser beam, a multi-beam generator, two plane mirrors to generate a two-dimensional XY interference pattern and a substrate on which the XY interference pattern is to be exposed. In this paper, pattern exposure tests are carried out by the developed optical configuration optimized by computer simulations. Some experimental results of the XY pattern fabrication will be reported.