Compressed Air-Film Encircling Jet Electrodeposition with High Deposition Accuracy

Abstract

To improve the deposition accuracy and surface quality of the deposited micro-features, a novel compressed air-film encircling Jet ECD was proposed. In the proposed Jet ECD, a high-speed compressed air-film is coaxially encircling the impinging electrolytic jet. Numerical model describing the coupled field of electric field and flow field was established, and some auxiliary observations and measurement experiments were conducted to investigate the distribution characteristics of electric field and hydrodynamics characteristics in the concerned regions as well as the change of the electrolyte jet diameter. And the effect of air-film formation parameters and hydrodynamic parameters of the electrolyte jet on the electrodeposition behaviors during forming patterns and high aspect ratio micro-features were studied. Deposition accuracy and surface quality of the microstructures fabricated by the compressed air-film encircling Jet ECD were evaluated. It was demonstrated that, compared with the traditional Jet ECD, the proposed Jet ECD has a higher deposition accuracy and faster deposition rate (up to 1 μm s−1) as well as better surface quality. In addition, the newly developed Jet ECD has an admirable additive manufacturing ability and a 370 ± 3 μm-diameter smooth column with the aspect ratio of about 20 was successfully manufactured.