Title: Establishment of a measuring station on a diamond turning machine for in-process cutting edge inspection of single point diamond micro-tools

Authors: SungHo Jang; Takemi Asai; Yuki Shimizu; Wei Gao

Addresses: Department of Nanomechanics, School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-01 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan. ' Department of Nanomechanics, School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-01 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan. ' Department of Nanomechanics, School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-01 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan. ' Department of Nanomechanics, School of Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-01 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan

Abstract: This paper presents a measuring station based on an atomic force microscope (AFM), which is designed and constructed on a four-axis diamond turning machine for inspection of the cutting edge profile of single point diamond micro-tools. The measuring station is composed of an AFM probe unit for three-dimensional (3D) edge profile measurement and an alignment system with an optical sensor for aligning the probe-tip with the edge top of the tool chip. The alignment system greatly shortens the alignment time, which is essential for carrying out the edge profile measurement by the AFM. Measurement experiments of round nose micro-tools with nominal nose radii of 8 µm and less than 2 µm were carried out to demonstrate the performance of the measuring station.

Keywords: edge profile measurement; atomic force microscope; AFM; diamond cutting tools; micro tools; optical sensors; in-process inspection; nanomanufacturing; nanotechnology; cutting edge inspection; diamond turning; micromachining; alignment time.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNM.2012.044659

International Journal of Nanomanufacturing, 2012 Vol.8 No.1/2, pp.106 - 122

Published online: 21 Aug 2014 *

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