Industry News
Scientists have drilled what may be the world’s smallest hole using equipment built at a UK-based research centre. Experts at the Cardiff University Manufacturing Engineering Centre (MEC; Cardiff, UK) have developed machinery that can make holes as small as 22 µm in stainless steel and other materials. The holes are narrower than a human hair, which measures between 50 and 80 µm in thickness.
To produce the minute holes, the centre created a 6-µm-diam electrode. A highly precise electrical-discharge wire grinder was constructed to fabricate the electrode.
“The holes we are now drilling with the electrodischarge machining (EDM) process could be the smallest in the world,” says MEC marketing director Frank Marsh. “Commercially available standard rods are capable of making holes of 150 µm. Although lasers are able to make small holes, they are of poorer quality when compared with the EDM process. Lasers make holes that taper, whereas EDM makes parallel or vertical holes.”
The ability to produce high-quality, tiny holes in conductive material may prove to be beneficial for designers in the medical and laboratory sciences. Electronics design applications are also possible. “Using this technology, electronic assemblies could shrink in size,” says Marsh. “It could also have an impact on the development of real-time and laboratory diagnostic and monitoring instruments, as well as surgical instruments.”
Grinders similar to the one used to make the electrode are available for purchase. The centre will assist customers in developing effective electrodes for their applications, according to Marsh.
New nanotechnological equipment will be added to the centre in 2006. The equipment will enable the centre’s scientists to make even smaller holes and to add ultrathin layers of surface materials to finish optical, medical, and other components.
For more information, contact the Manufacturing Engineering Centre (MEC), Cardiff University, Queen’s Building, The Parade, Newport Rd., Cardiff CF24 3AA, UK; phone: +44 29 20874641; fax: +44 29 20874880; e-mail: manufacturing@cf.ac.uk; Internet: www.mec.cf.ac.uk.
