**6. References**


Conference on High Performance Cutting, 24-26 october, 2010, Nagaragawa Convention Center, Gifu, Japan.

**Chapter 6** 

© 2012 Fan, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

© 2012 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Fabrication of Microscale Tungsten Carbide** 

Yufeng Fan

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/51405

**1. Introduction** 

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

non-traditional or mechanical machining methods.

**Workpiece by New Centerless Grinding Method** 

Recent years have seen the rapid increase in the demand for microscale components smaller than 100μm in diameter, such as micro machine parts, micromachining tools, micro pin gauges, medical catheters, and probes used in scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and semiconductor inspection. To meet this demand, many researchers have actively engaged in the development of new technology for fabricating such devices precisely and efficiently by

Non-traditional machining has employed laser beam lithography and the focused ion beam method. Maruo and Ikuta [1], Yamaguchi et al. [2], and Nakai and Marutani [3] utilized laser beam lithography to fabricate 3D microscale photopolymer components including microscale cylindrical parts. Vasile et al.[4] developed a processing method for the sharpening of STM probes with a focused ion beam. Furthermore, electric discharge machining (EDM) technology is quite effective in micromachining, as seen, for example, in studies on wire EDM of minute electrodes by Heeren et al. [5] and Masuzawa et al. [6,7]. However, these non-traditional methods can only be applied to a limited set of materials,

and problems involving machining efficiency and accuracy have not been resolved.

On the other hand, traditional mechanical machining methods, such as cutting and grinding, have also been employed in microscale fabrication. For example, Uehara et al. [8] studied electrolytic in-process dressing (ELID) cylindrical grinding of a micro-shaft, and Okano et al. [9] researched cylindrical grinding of a micro-cylinder. Yamagata and Higuchi [10] developed a four-axis controlled ultra-precision machine and conducted precision turning experiments on a stepped shaft. In these traditional mechanical methods, however, the workpiece is held at its end by a chuck or at both ends by two centers during machining operation. Consequently, it is difficult to perform high-efficiency, high-accuracy machining,

