This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 12490, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, and Conference Committee information.

Rapid advancement of materials and material-processing technologies has enabled fabrication of complex geometries on difficult-to-machine materials, and abrasive-finishing technology must in turn respond to those significant changes. An example of an advanced abrasive-finishing technique is the magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF) process. A magnetic abrasive comprises ferrous particles linked together along magnetic lines of force, when subjected to a magnetic field. These ferrous-particle chains offer configurational flexibility desired for the finishing process. Moreover, it is possible to influence the motion of a ferrous particle—even if the particle is not in direct contact with a magnet—by controlling the magnetic field. This impactful behavior of ferrous particles enables the application of the finishing operation not only to easily accessible surfaces but also to areas that are hard to reach by conventional mechanical techniques, such as freeform components and the interiors of flexible tubes. The obtained surface roughness ranges from the sub-nanometer to micrometer scales and alters light reflectivity, wettability by liquids, friction response, etc. Recent studies found that MAF leads to coloration of stainless-steel surfaces under certain finishing conditions through the formation of oxide layers. This presentation describes the fundamentals of MAF including some representative applications, the relationship between tool motion and the corresponding finished-surface structures, and characteristics of the observed coloration.

Conductive surfaces and patterns are at the forefront of electronics research with a need to go smaller and create more intricate electronic designs and devices while still maintaining easy manufacturability. This paper investigates an approach of patterning conductive traces for microsize electrically driven devices with the focus on enabling and patterning complicated geometries. The approach includes the design and fabrication of hydrophilic microstructures along the channels with hydrophobic borders on devices’ surfaces. The channels are connected to larger electrodes outside the device. When a conductive solution is applied to the outside electrode area, hydrophilic morphologies stimulate the solution to feed along the channels and fill the predesigned patterns. Therefore, the major objective of this study is to explore different designs of microstructures to increase surface hydrophilicity for liquid electrode patterning for variously oriented surfaces. Due to numerous physical forces, material domains, and interactions involved, experimental approach is selected to study the method of surface electrode micropatterning through wetting. Microstructured surfaces are fabricated using the two-photon polymerization 3D printing technique due to its superior resolution. Analysis of various morphologies is completed, a microsize electromechanical device with selected hydrophilic morphologies is fabricated, patterned with liquid electrode, and tested. The findings in this paper further the development of electrode patterning and help determine which hydrophilic microstructures show superior patterning ability along horizontal and vertical vectors.

A Bragg mirror is a dielectric slab that is periodically nonhomogeneous in the thickness direction. It displays the Bragg phenomenon as a high-reflectance spectral regime that depends on the direction of propagation and the polarization state of the incident light. Implicit in both theoretical treatments and fabrication procedures is the smoothness of the surface on which the Bragg mirror is fabricated. We have found that the Bragg phenomenon exhibited in the visible regime by periodically nonhomogeneous thin films grown on glass substrates can be significantly affected, even nullified, by pre-fabrication roughening of the surface of the substrate.

Non-destructive methods by ground-penetrating radar (GPR) are widely used for road evaluation. To analyze the propagation of electromagnetic waves, it is necessary to have information about the dielectric properties of roads. However, multi-layered structures, various constituents, and a large scale of roads make the direct measurement of core samples hard to be representative. Moreover, climatic conditions will also complicate the analysis due to the dielectric drift. Thus, a non-destructive dielectric measurement adapted for road in situ study is very important. In this work, we will present an open-ended coaxial probe and its application on a newly paved road. In the future, we will integrate the impedance analysis at low frequency to test the dielectric relaxations in different controllable environments, which will help us to better understand the dielectric properties of roads as well as the influences of climate changes.

The atomic force microscope (AFM)-based nanomachining has the potential for highly customized nanofabrication due to its low cost and tunability. However, the low productivity and issues related to the quality assurance for AFM-based nanomachining impede it from large-scale production due to the extensive experimental study for turning process parameters with time-consuming offline characterizations. This work reports an analytic approach to capturing the AE spectral frequency responses from the nanopatterning process using vibration-assisted AFM-based nanomachining. The experimental case study suggests the presented approach allows characterizations of subtle variations on the AE frequency responses during the nanomachining processes (with overall 93% accuracy), which opens up the chance to explain the variations of the nano-dynamics using the senor-based monitoring approach for vibration-assisted AFM-based nanomachining.

Thin film flexible electronics refer to a class of electronic devices built on flexible substrates. Examples includes printed Li batteries, Thin film flexible electronics refer to a class of electronic devices manufactured by multiple layering and scribing on flexible polymer substrates. Examples of such devices includes printed Li batteries, flexible photovoltaic cells and light emitting diodes. These devices are often mass manufactured by Roll-to-Roll processing (R2R). Whilst the basic technology is well established, the increasing demands on precision environmental protection and multi layering of devices means that in-process measurement of printed surface features is a critical bottle neck in terms of developing R2R as a process route. The purpose of the present paper is to review the current critical dimensional metrology needs in R2R manufacture and in particular to highlight the development of a new inprocess surface metrology system based on Multi-wavelength Polarizing Interferometry (MPI). The system is capable of measurement in real time, is environmentally robust and has nanometre resolution. The paper concludes by highlighting an example of the first trial implementation of the MPI on a production level R2R machine and discussed issues with quantification of film dimensions and associated signal processing