Damage-Free Processing of Ceramics by Plasma Nanomanufacturing

Abstract

Plasma nanoManufacturing process is a novel physicochemical processing system consisting of plasma chemical vaporization machining (PCVM) for shape creation and plasma-assisted polishing (PAP) for surface finishing. PCVM enables us to make an arbitrary free form with nanometer order shape accuracy for optical components by numerically controlled scanning of localized plasma. In the case of PAP, surface of the substrate is modified by irradiation of atmospheric pressure plasma, and modified soft layer is removed by soft abrasive. And damage-free surfaces with subnanometer order surface roughness for difficult-to-polish materials, such as wide-gap semiconductor and functional engineering ceramics, are obtained by applying PAP. In this paper, the outline of plasma nanoManufacturing process and some results are introduced.