Three-dimensional EMM

However, high aspect ratio three-dimensional (3D) microfeatures are required in various microengineering applications. These can be machined by 3D EMM. Very hard, noncorrosive, and electrically conductive materials are suitable for microtools, such as tungsten, tungsten carbide, and... 

Machining of microdevices has become the key issue in modem technologies. There are only few techniques available to machine microstmctures with three-dimensional (3-D) features with advanced materials such as copper, aluminum, nickel, titanium, steel, and their alloys. EMM is one of the best techniques with higher flexibilities that can be successfully exploited to fabricate different microfeatures with high accuracy and quality. Some of the machining applications are discussed hereunder. 

EMM with ultrashort voltage pulse and much smaller lEG improves the precision to nanometer range and provides an alternative to the established nanoscale fabrication technologies which are mostly limited to two-dimensional structures. EMM can also be successfully utilized for nano-fabrication of three-dimensional structures with much lesser cost and lesser time which is still a challenge to the researchers. However, this area of EMM requires in-depth research to make it commercially successful in various nanotechnology applications. 

Microdevices fabrication for MEMS and other microengineering applications have been reported in Chapter 10. It presents a clear view on fabrication of microfeature of aluminum, copper, stainless steel, nickel, and titanium, etc., for MEMS. Some of the interesting topics included in this chapter are fabrication of high aspect ratio features for MEMS as well as micromachining of semiconductor by EMM. Here, EMM has successfully demonstrated its capabifity as an alternative technique for machining of microdevices with three-dimensional features of higher resolutions on metals as well as semiconductors. 

Chapter 12 focuses on recent advancements in EMM for micro and nanofabrication. It contains various emerging variants of EMM. Various interesting factors of surface structuring of aluminum, stainless steel, and titanium, etc., by EMM have been presented considering not only simple flat surfaces but also complex curved surfaces. EMM can also be successfully utilized for fabrication of three-dimensional nanostructures which has also been reported. 

---