Photochemical Machining of Alumina Ceramic in Phosphoric Acid
Winter 1987
Fine ceramics have become useful in many industries.
However, since they are difficult-to-machine materials, there
are many problems in applications. Hence developments ofnew
processing techniques for ceramic materials have been required.
The purpose of this investigation is to develop the photochemical
machining technique of alumina ceramic.
Since ceramic materials have very high chemical resistance,
etchant systems are important. Phosphoric acid has been shown
to chemically attach several ceramic materials and has been used
to chemically polish a number of oxide materials (1-4). It
therefore seems likely that some ceramic materials can also be
chemically machined with phosphoric acid.
The other important material is a photoresist for photochemical
machining. Since etching conditions may be very
severe, a high-resistant and chemically inert material is
needed.
Eiji Makino, Toshikazu Sato, and Yoshihiko Yamada, Hokkaido University
