Experimental Study on the Effects of Alumina Abrasive Particle Behavior in MR Polishing for MEMS Applications.docVIP

Sensors 2008, 8, 222-235 sensors ISSN 1424-8220 ? 2008 by MDPI /sensors Full Research Paper Experimental Study on the Effects of Alumina Abrasive Particle Behavior in MR Polishing for MEMS Applications Dong-Woo Kim 1,*, Myeong-Woo Cho 1, Tae-Il Seo2 and Young-Jae Shin 3 1 Division of Mechanical Engineering, Inha University, Incheon 402-751, Korea; E-mails: kdw525@ (D.-W. K.); chomwnet@inha.ac.kr (M.-W. C.) 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Incheon, Incheon 402-751, Korea; E-mail: tiseo@incheon.ac.kr (T.-I. S.) 3 Nano-Mechanical Systems Technology Division, KIMM, Daejeon 305-343, Korea; E-mail: yjshin@kimm.re.kr (Y.-J. S.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Received: 30 November 2007 / Accepted: 8 January 2008 / Published: 21 January 2008 Abstract: Recently, the magnetorheological (MR) polishing process has been examined as a new ultra-precision polishing technology for micro parts in MEMS applications. In the MR polishing process, the magnetic force plays a dominant role. This method uses MR fluids which contains micro abrasives as a polishing media. The objective of the present research is to shed light onto the material removal mechanism under various slurry conditions for polishing and to investigate surface characteristics, including shape analysis and surface roughness measurement, of spots obtained from the MR polishing process using alumina abrasives. A series of basic experiments were first performed to determine the optimum polishing conditions for BK7 glass using prepared slurries by changing the process parameters, such as wheel rotating speed and electric current. Using the obtained results, groove polishing was then performed and the results are investigated. Outstanding surface roughness of Ra=3.8nm was obtained on the BK7 glass specimen. The present results highlight the possibility of applying this polishing method to ultra