Influence of nanoparticle coolant and crystal structure of the workpiece during nanometric cutting of silicon carbide

Silicon carbide (SiC) is a suitable candidate for MEMS, NEMS, optoelectronic and nanotribological applications e.g. airborne laser devices, laser radar systems, vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) telescopes and space based laser mirrors. In-depth understanding of the influence of coolant and crystal structure of the work material on the nanometric cutting process of SiC could help in cost saving operations. Therefore, nanoscratching trials were carried out on single crystal 6H-SiC involving four pre-selected coolants to emulate nanometric cutting. A specific coolant was found to improve the cutting conditions tremendously and hence recommended. Moreover, a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation model was developed to simulate nanometric cutting of polycrystalline (PC) 3C-SiC and single crystal (SC) 3C-SiC. Besides explaining the reasons for the ease of machinability of chemically vapour deposited (CVD) 3C-SiC compared to SC-3C-SiC, simulation results also explains why SC-SiC provides a better measure of attainable surface roughness in comparison to CVD-SiC and reaction bonded (RB)-SiC.