Fabrication of micro-scale grooves in glass using a non-rigid cutting mechanism

Application of a force feedback control system

Abstract

A single crystal diamond cutting tool has been mounted at the free edge of a cantilever beam to implement a force feedback control system, in order to maintain constant the normal component of the cutting force and the cutting depth. This mechanism has also shown a good behavior during the fabrication of micro-scale grooves on glass, allowing us to achieve machining in ductile mode up to 3 micrometers on flat surfaces. These results are obtained due to the deformation observed by the cantilever beam during the cutting experiment, which conducts to a reduction of the stress intensity in the vicinity of the cutting zone. In this paper, experiments have been performed to observe the behavior of the cutting mechanism during the fabrication of micro-scale grooves on a glass sphere, obtaining as result grooves with a constant cutting depth in ductile mode.