Fabrication and Characterizations of Nickel Metal Mask with fine Pitch by Additive Process

We successively fabricated the Ni metal mask by additive method and evaluated the effects of wetting agents addition on the microstructure, hardness, and friction coefficient. In the process, the additive patterns with fine hole and pitch were made by photolithography technique and subsequently Ni plate was electroformed on the patterns. We found that the microstructure and mechanical properties were significantly varied when the different combinations of the wetting agents were used. When the wetting agents of both SF-1 and SF-2 were added, the microstructure consisted of crystal and amorphous phases, the grain size reduced to 5-40 nm, the RMS value decreased to 11.4 nm and the wear resistance improved. In addition, the hardness was as high as 638 Hv which is higher than that of commercial stainless steel mask and this improvement is probably due to the presence of amorphous Phase and fine grain size. The improvement of the wear resistance can provide a higher reliability and a longer service life.