Magnetic Field Assisted Polishing for Micromilled Mold

Abstract

Micromilling has great potential in fabrication of micromold for lab-on-a-chip applications. However, high surface roughness presents on the mold limited accessibility and utility of the micromilling method. In this paper, we present a magnetic field assisted polishing method to manipulate the iron particles cloud to improve the surface roughness of structured surface. The polishing process integrated in Computer Numerical Control (CNC). By modifying the G-code of CNC program, we were able to precisely control polishing condition such as the polishing path, polishing force and polishing time. Consequently, the burrs and tool marks are completely removed, the roughness of the surface is significantly decreased from 350 nm Ra to 30 nm Ra, and 1200 nm Rz to 300 nm Rz while the deterioration of microstructures minimized.