Experimental Investigation on Electrochemical Discharge Milling of Micro Structures on Quartz Glass

Background: The fabrication of micro-groove and microstructures in non-conductive hard and brittle materials is always difficult. The electrochemical discharge milling process is a good selection for the fabrication of micro-grooves and microstructures. Objective: In this paper, an electrochemical discharge milling process for fabricating micro-grooves is introduced. In order to investigate the influences of pulse voltage, pulse frequency, duty cycle and feed rate on machining accuracy and localization, the experiment of the microgrooves and microstructures was carried out. Methods: Firstly, the electrochemical discharge milling set-up has been built based on the machining principle. Secondly, a discharge energy control model was established. Then, a series of experiments has been carried out to investigate the effect of applied voltage, frequency, duty factor, and feed rate on the groove width. An array of micro-grooves was obtained by the optimized parameters. Finally, some complex microstructures like micro-channels and 3D microstructures on glass were fabricated successfully. Results: The groove width increases with the increase of machining voltage and duty cycle, the groove width decreases with the increase of pulse frequency and feed rate. Better machining localization can be obtained with the smaller voltage and duty cycle, the larger pulse frequency and feed rate. Conclusion: Two-dimensional microchannel and three-dimensional microstructures have been successfully machined on the glass workpiece. It has some guiding significance for the fabrication of nonconductive hard brittle materials.