The physical penomena which occur during ion micro beam processing of polymers are basically different from those of metals. The electrical and thermal conductivity of polymers are extremely low .The first one induces charge-up phenomenon and the second may cause the evaporation of the materials owing to localized heating around the beam irradiated area. The purpose of this study was to investigate the thermal effects and evaporation of the materials which influence the removal rate of the surface material together with sputtering. Sputtering and thermal evaporation are responsible for removal of the material during the microprocessing of polymers using a highly focused ion beam. Investigations were done for the case of nylon-6 which are which are widely used as biomaterials. The highly focused ion beam of Ga, with a diameter of 0.2μm and energy of 30keV, was used with different irradiating time, ranging from 10 to 70 s. The widths and depths of fabricated lines were measured using AFM. The machinability of nylon-6 was evaluated by estimating the removal rate.
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