POWDER PARTICLE MANIPULATION AND ASSEMBLAGE USING MICROPROBE

Powder particle manipulation and welding techniques using a microprobe have been developed for use of microassembling. These techniques were applied to fabrication of microstructures by assembling powder partic les. For the microprobe, a needle with a tip of 2 mu m in diameter was prepared. Au and Ni alloy powder particles of about 60-100 mu m diame ter were used for the manipulation and welding experiments. The experi ments showed that Au powder particles can be easily picked up, moved t o a predetermined point and deposited at the point by controlling the voltage between the W microprobe and the substrate. Furthermore, the p owder particle can be welded into the substrate or other powder partic les on the substrate by glow discharge between the tip of the probe an d the substrate. By utilization of the powder particle manipulation an d welding, microstructures composed of Au and Ni alloy powder particle s were fabricated. It was demonstrated that the microprobe technique i s very useful for the fabrication of micromachines and microdevices. A lso, the technique is thought to be useful for the creation of intelli gent materials.