Nano Material Removal Mechanism of 4H-Sic in Ion Implantation-Assisted Machining

As a third-generation semiconductor material, four-hexagonal silicon carbide (4H-SiC) finds wide application in industries. The high efficiency and performance machining of 4H-SiC ceramics have attracted researchers’ more attention. Ultra-precision diamond cutting is generally used to machine high-quality nanoscale surfaces. As a typical hard-to-cut brittle material, 4H-SiC causes significant tool wear during machining. It is necessary to study the effective process parameters and machining methods to improve the machining performance. In this study, the molecular dynamic (MD) analysis was used to comparatively investigate the effect of 4H-SiC by implanted different Ga ion implantation doses. The lattice damage, hydrostatic stress, radial distribution function (RDF), and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) were analyzed in detail. The cutting effect of implanted 4H-SiC with different implantation ions was then compared with unimplanted 4H-SiC. The machining properties were characterized by removed material morphological structure, temperature, coordination number, and stress distribution. The results provided an understanding of the mechanism of ion implantation-assisted nano-cutting. Besides, the effect of ion implantation-assisted and stress-assisted combined nano-cutting 4H-SiC was also investigated. The results demonstrated that the combination of ion implantation-assisted and stress-assisted could effectively decrease the cutting force and stresses, thus improving the machining efficiency and machinability of 4H-SiC.