Powder blasting, or Abrasive Jet Machining (AJM), is a technique in which a particle jet is directed towards a target for mechanical material removal. It is a fast, cheap and accurate directional etch technique for brittle materials like glass, silicon and ceramics. By introducing electroplated copper as a new mask material, the feature size of this process was decreased. It was found that blasting with 9 pm particles (compared with 30 pm particles) result in a higher slope of the channel sidewall. The aspect ratio of powder blasted channels was increased by using the high resistance of the copper mask in combination with the use of 9 pm particles. Furthermore, our measurements show how the blast lag (small channels etch slower compared to wider channels) is decreased by using smaller particles.

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The paper presents a hydraulic astable multivibrator system. The system consists of hydraulic resistors, hydraulic capacitors and hydraulic pressure controlled valves. The system is designed, realised and tested. The measured system behaviour agrees well with the model simulations. The free running frequency of the multivibrator is 0.18 Hz and the output pressure swing is 90% of the supply pressure.

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We present a device that enables nanoelectrochemical deposition using Atomic Force Microscope. The micromachined fountain pen is a probe that consists of a fluidic reservoir, fluidic channels encapsulated in cantilevers and a pyramidal probe tip by which the fluid transfer to the sample surface takes pIace. Electrochemical metal deposition occurs on a sample surface when electrical current is driven through the electrical circuit, which is closed by the electrolyte solution. The smallest features that we succeedded depositing with this technique up till now are 3 nm high and 250 nm wide.