Abstract
Carbon nanotubes possess advantages over other materials due to their superior strength-to-weight ratios, tremendous stiffness, high conductivity, high flexibility, and low density. Many promising applications have been proposed for carbon nanotubes, including miniaturized electronic and mechanical devices. In this chapter, the applications on nontraditional machining and microscopy are introduced. Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is one of the most successful and widely accepted manufacturing processes for complicated shapes and tiny apertures with high accuracy including micro nozzle fabrication, drilling of composites and making of moulds and dies of hardened steels. This method is considered suitable for machining of materials with extremely high hardness, strength, wear resistance and thermal resistance. Carbon nanotube powder is mixed in the dielectric of EDM, where the powders continuously float and uniformly disperse throughout the entire dielectric-filled cavity with little agglomeration during EDM. Hence it reduces the insulating strength of the dielectric fluid and increases the spark gap between the tool and specimen. As a result, the EDM becomes more stable, thereby improving the material removal rate, the surface characteristics and the machining efficiency. The surface characteristics play an important role in micro/nanofabrication as well as understanding the nature of workpiece. In recent years, atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been widely used to measure the surface at the nanometer scale. AFM is also a powerful technique to conduct lithography on the substrates acquiring the desired nanostructures. AFM can act as a nanomanipulator to pick up and release nanoscale structures on surfaces. Carbon nanotubes show great potential for AFM applications due to their smaller diameters than Si or metal tips result in a high resolution. The high aspect ratios of carbon nanotubes are very suitable to observe a specimen with the precipitous features and their physical and chemical robustness lead to a high abrasion resistance. This work will review the mechanical and electrical properties of carbon nanotubes and the applications in EDM and AFM. © 2013 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.