Electrochemical micromachining of nitinol by confined-etchant-layer technique

The confined etchant layer technique has been applied to fabricate complex three-dimensional microstructures on nitinol for the first time. HF and HNO₃ were locally and simultaneously electrogenerated at the mold surface to etch a nitinol workpiece. NaOH was used as an efficient scavenger to confine the etchant close to the mold. Cyclic voltammetry was employed to study the electrochemical behavior of a Pt electrode in the etching solution in order to choose an appropriate potential for etchant generation on the mold. The thickness of the confined etchant layer was estimated to be several micrometers by inspecting the deviation of the sizes of the etched spots from the sizes of those on the microelectrode. Thus, the composition of the electrolyte could be optimized for better etching precision. By optimizing the composition of the electrolyte, complex microstructures on a Pt-Ir mold bearing the logo “XMU” of Xiamen University were successfully fabricated on nitinol. The etched patterns were approximately negative copies of the mold, and the precision of duplication could easily reach the micrometer scale.