A new way to manufacture microstructures with 3D printer (IMAGE)
Caption
By combining atomic force probes with microfluidics, this research proposes a method of "localized electrodeposition micro-additive manufacturing of atomic force servo pulse microjets". Following with the research idea of "single voxel deposition-multiple voxels bonding-small structure forming" and the manufacturing essential law of the interaction of "Material-Energy-Information", we integrate four key technologies to develop a maskless, supportless, long cantilever inert metal electrochemical additive manufacturing (LECD-μAM) method including pulsed microjet electrolyte pressurization injection (Material supply), focused electric-induced localized electrochemical deposition (Energy replenishment), atomic force servo closed-loop control (Information feedback) and digital model conversion accuracy maintenance. Besides, the printing state of the micro-helical springs can be assessed by detecting the Z-axis displacement and the deflection of the atomic force probe (AFP) cantilever at the same time. Results show that it took 361 s to print a helical spring with a wire length of 320.11 μm at a deposition rate of 0.887 μm/s which can be changed on-the-fly by simply tuning the extrusion pressure and the applied voltage. Moreover, the in-situ nanoindenter is used to measure the compressive mechanical properties of the helical spring. The shear modulus of the helical spring material was about 60.8 Gpa, much higher than that of bulk copper (~44.2 Gpa). These results have discovered a new way of fabricating the terahertz transmitter components and micro-helical antennas by LECD-μAM technology.
Credit
By Wanfei Ren, Jinkai Xu, Zhongxu Lian, Xiaoqing Sun, Zhenming Xu, Huadong Yu
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Credit must be given to the creator.
License
CC BY