Drilling a Hole Smaller Than a Human Hair

Experts at the U.K.'s Cardiff University Manufacturing Engineering Centre are drilling holes as small as 22 microns (0.022 mm) in stainless steel and other materials. By comparison, a human hair runs between 80 microns (0.08 mm) to 50 microns (0.05 mm) in thickness.

The Engineering Centre understands that the ability to produce quality tiny holes in any conductive material means a significant advancement in mechanical engineering that will benefit designers in the medical and laboratory sciences as well as electronic design engineers in creating smaller electronic systems for use in many industrial and consumer applications.

The ability to drill such tiny holes is achieved by creating a minute electrode with a diameter of just 6 microns (0.006 mm), which, in turn, was produced by manufacturing a highly precise wire electrode discharge grinder.

The Engineering Centre's marketing director, Frank Marsh, says that, "The holes we are now drilling with the electrodischarge machining (EDM) process could be the smallest in the world. Commercially available standard rods are capable of making holes of 150 microns. Although lasers are able to make small holes, they are of poorer quality when compared to the EDM process. Lasers make holes that taper where EDM makes parallel or vertical holes."

Centre scientists will be acquiring new nanotechnological equipment that will enable them to make even smaller holes and to add surface materials of tiny thicknesses to finish optical, medical and other components.