Microfabrication of microchannels for fuel cell plates.

Portable electronic devices such as notebook computers, PDAs, cellular phones, etc., are being widely used, and they increasingly need cheap, efficient, and lightweight power sources. Fuel cells have been proposed as possible power sources to address issues that involve energy production and the environment.

Fabrication of Biochips with Micro Fluidic Channels by Micro End-milling and Powder Blasting.

For microfabrications of biochips with micro fluidic channels, a large number of microfabrication techniques based on silicon or glass-based Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) technologies were proposed in the last decade. In recent years, for low cost and mass production, polymer-based microfabrication techniques by microinjection molding and micro hot embossing have been proposed. These techniques, which require a proper photoresist, mask, UV light exposure, developing, and electroplating as a preprocess, are considered to have some problems.

Micro Dot Patterning on the Light Guide Panel Using Powder Blasting.

This study is to develop a micromachining technology for a light guidepanel(LGP) mold, whereby micro dot patterns are formed on a LGP surface by a singleinjection process instead of existing screen printing processes. The micro powder blastingtechnique is applied to form micro dot patterns on the LGP mold surface. The optimalconditions for masking, laminating, exposure, and developing processes to form the microdot patterns are first experimentally investigated.

Micro Fluidic Channel Machining on Fused Silica Glass Using Powder Blasting.

In this study, micro fluid channels are machined on fused silica glass via powder blasting, a mechanical etching process, and the machining characteristics of the channels are experimentally evaluated. In the process, material removal is performed by the collision of micro abrasives injected by highly compressed air on to the target surface. This approach can be characterized as an integration of brittle mode machining based on micro crack propagation.