A System Made of Diamond for Assembling Microelements

Diamond is a high performance material in many ways, i.e., having mechanically the highest hardness, thermally the highest thermal conductivity, chemically high stability in various atmospheres at ordinary temperatures, and electrically high insulation. The goal of this study is to fabricate a maintenance-free micromachine system equipped with diamond elements that can work under severe conditions, in human body for example, for a long period. As the first step of this study, the authors made a micromanipulator having diamond end effector that can handle micro elements, as small as several to several ten micrometers, made of diamond. The shape of end effector was first designed and the distribution of stress caused during its operation was stimulated by the FEM method to avoid possible harmful stress concentration. Then, a homemade thick CVD diamond film was cut by a YAG laser to define the final configuration of the effector. Then a coil made a thin shape memory alloy wire, superior to electrostatic and/or piezoelectric devices in power-weight ratio and acceptable driving range, was used for the actuator. The manipulator produced worked satisfactorily to grip and locate diamond micro elements of the size described.