Monday, January 13, 2014

Sapphire Wet Etching Technology

By Roy van Rivero


Sapphire aka Aluminum Oxide (with chemical formula: al2o3) is used in various applications in different industries. It is popular in jewelry production and other decorative materials. But, more than that, this material is of great value in many non-decorative applications such as in infrared optical components, laboratory/scientific instruments, and electronic wafers, wherein it is used as a substrate insulator.

There are a number of technologies being used to process this material to its optimum use. However, in this content, we will discuss about the Acubath XE, a tool that is used in sapphire etching process. Below are some of the features that user can benefit from:

This technology was designed to take the heat. The liquid inside the Accubath Xe comes in contact with nothing but high purity quartz. It also comes with what they call Aquaseal (patented) for failure prevention of critical seal material, which separates the heater components from the environment.

It features Auxiliary Module. Chemistries of extreme temperature bound for disposal are held first at this module, allowing them to cool before the final disposal. Auxiliary Module features quartz cooling coils that help to lower the chemistry temperature. This just means that you do not have to worry on working with chemistries in extreme temperature using the system.

Sapphire - the most well-known oxide ceramic material

Aluminum oxide is considered to be one of the most popular oxide ceramic materials and this is, most probably, because of the following properties:

- It has a high electrical insulation property

- It has a moderate to extremely high mechanical strength (300 to 630 MPa) - it depends on the level of purity.

- Very high compression strength (from 2,000 to 4,000 MPa)

- High hardness

- The thermal conductivity is about 20 to 30 W/mk

- It has a high corrosion and wear resistance

- It has a good gliding properties

- Low density (3.75 to 3.95 g/cm^3)

- Operating temperature of 1,000 to 1,500 degree Celsius.




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