Nanomachining

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Due to the current trend towards higher precision miniaturized components from current industries such as micro-electronics and emerging nanotechnologies such as nano electro-mechanical systems (NEMS), there is a need for a deeper understanding of the fundamental physics governing nanometric machining where the thickness of the removed layer of material is less than 100 nm. Due to the small scale nature of the process, nanometric machining can be extremely sensitive to the machining conditions and to the initial state of the pristine workpiece. Therefore it is unclear how applicable conventional micro-/macro-scopic machining principles are for high precision nanometric machining. To investigate machining at the nanoscale, we employ atomistic simulations to closely observe the unfolding of material removal, record the resistance encountered by the toolpiece and measure the resulting friction at the tool-chip interface. The gained fundamental understanding could help establish new guidelines for the development of the next generation of ultrafine nanometric machining technology.

(a) 45o workpiece rotation  (b) 45o toolpiece rotation

 
These close up views of the predicted material removal show how sensitive nanometric machining can be to the initial state of the workpiece and toolpiece material. The only different between figures (a) and (b) is a 45o rotation of either the workpiece or toolpiece crystal lattice with all the other machining conditions kept constant. The colors in the workpiece represent vertical atomic displacement and one can observe that in case (a) the chip slides over the tool while in case (b) the chip completely adheres to the toolpiece.