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Cutting Mica Sheet

Submitted by Masayuki Wakamatsu on

Hi iMechanica,

  I am not sure if I can post this type of primitive questions here, but hope you wouldn't mind.  I have a 1'' by 3'' mica sheet, and it needs to cut hopefully without cracks. I searched on available papers but could not find one that described how a cut with hot-wire configuration was made of. (closest call was "Platinum Nanoparticles at Mica Surfaces" by Zhiqun Lin and Steve Granick). If you have an experience on cutting mica for your research, could you please share with me about how you set up cutting tools or another simpler method?  I have a platinum wire (d = 0.2mm), but do not have anything else at this moment.

 Sincerely,

 Masa

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Masayuki Wakamatsu

Hi Mingji,

 Thank you for your comments. We have a dicer at newly built nano center, but dicer won't work this case...

I came up with a simple design and should be tested as soon as machining be completed.  Again, thank you for your support.

Wed, 03/19/2008 - 19:46 Permalink
Qunyang Li

Hi, masa

I am not sure whether your problem has been solved or not. I had some experiences before on mica cutting, hope it will be usefule for you.

The problme for cutting mica mechanically is that cracks always exist along the edges. One way I found that could effectively prevent this cracking was to utilize a sandwich structure. Glue your mica sheet between two microscope cover slides using some removable or dissolvable adhesives (I used thermo-sensitive glue, it worked great). Next thing is to find a cutting tool (e.g. a diamond saw) to cut the "sandwich" into any shape you want.  After cutting, simply dissolve the adhesive to remove the glasses. The mica sheet could be further cleaved if you want an atomically flat & clean surface. 

Qunyang

Wed, 03/19/2008 - 20:54 Permalink