NANOSCALE CUTTING OF MONOCRYSTALLINE SILICON USING MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATION

It has been found that the brittle material, monocrystalline silicon, can be machined in ductile mode in nanoscale cutting when the tool cutting edge radius is reduced to nanoscale and the undeformed chip thickness is smaller than the tool edge radius. In order to better understand the mechanism of ductile mode cutting of silicon, the molecular dynamics （MD） method is employed to simulate the nanoscale cutting of monocrystalline silicon. The simulated variation of the cutting forces with the tool cutting edge radius is compared with the cutting force results from experimental cutting tests and they show a good agreement. The results also indicate that there is silicon phase transformation from monocrystalline to amorphous in the chip formation zone that can be used to explain the cause of ductile mode cutting. Moreover, from the simulated stress results, the two necessary conditions of ductile mode cutting, the tool cutting edge radius are reduced to nanoscale and the undeformed chip thickness should be smaller than the tool cutting edge radius, have been explained.

A review on ductile mode cutting of brittle materials

Brittle materials have been widely employed for industrial applications due to their excellent mechanical, optical, physical and chemical properties. But obtaining smooth and damage-free surface on brittle materials by traditional machining methods like grinding, lapping and polishing is very costly and extremely time consuming. Ductile mode cutting is a very promising way to achieve high quality and crack-free surfaces of brittle materials. Thus the study of ductile mode cutting of brittle materials has been attracting more and more efforts. This paper provides an overview of ductile mode cutting of brittle materials including ductile nature and plasticity of brittle materials, cutting mechanism, cutting characteris- tics, molecular dynamic simulation, critical undeformed chip thickness, brittle-ductile transition, subsurface damage, as well as a detailed discussion of ductile mode cutting enhancement. It is believed that ductile mode cutting of brittle materials could be achieved when both crack-free and no subsurface damage are obtained simultaneously.

An Indentation Method for Nanoprecision Measurement of Diamond Tool Edge Radius

In ductile mode cutting of brittle materials using di amond tools, such as ductile cutting of silicon and quartz for wafer fabrication , one of the key conditions for achieving ductile chip formation is to get the r ight ratio of tool cutting edge radius to the undeformed chip thickness. It has been shown that the undeformed chip thickness has to be in the order of nanomete rs and that the tool cutting edge radius has to be smaller than the undeformed c hip thickness. Therefore, nanoprecision measurement of diamond cutting tools has become a key issue for ductile mode cutting of brittle materials. In this paper , a non-destructive nanoprecision measurement method for diamond tool cutting e dge radius is presented. The basis of the method is that the exact profile of th e tool cutting edge can be perfectly copied by indenting the tool cutting edge o n the surface of a rigid-perfect plastic material, and that the copy of the pro file can be measured at nanoprecision level. Ideally, the first aspect of th e method is to make a perfect copy of the tool cutting edge profile by indentati on on the surface of a rigid-perfect plastic material which has no elastic spri ng back, so that a true copy of the tool cutting edge is maintained for subseque nt measurement. Since no rigid-perfect plastic material can be found in realit y, actual materials of rigid-elastic-plastic nature have to be used for the in dentation in the measurement method, and the material elastic error compensation coefficients have to be determined to cancel out the effect of elastic spring b ack. For the minimization of error compensation, criteria for the selection of t he optimal materials for the indentation measurement are found to be: 1) high ri gidity and high density, 2) large Young’s elastic modulus, and 3) low yield strength. One of such materials identified is copper. The second aspect of the method is to measure the radius of the indented profile on the surface of the ma terial. This can be achieved by using an atomic force microscope (AFM), and in t his paper the results for measurement of diamond tool edge radii of nanometer sc ales by indentation on a copper material are presented. The elastic error compen sation coefficient for the copper material is determined through the indentation of a tungsten carbide tool edge on the copper surface. By comparing the actual tool edge radius measured using SEM on the sectional view of the tungsten carbid e tool with the one measured from the copied profile of the tool edge on the cop per surface, the coefficient is obtained. Analysis is given for the accuracy of the proposed method, showing that as far as the elastic compensation coefficient is consistent with the material used for the indentation measurement, the only source of errors with the measurement will come from the device for measuring th e indented profile on the surface of the solid, in this case it will come from t he AFM which measures on the sub-nanometer scales.