Production of Metal Microsphere via Controlled Capillary

This thesis presents a novel method to fabricate uniform metal microspheres by a custom-made programmable apparatus that is connected to a fine glass capillary. The size of metal microsphere is determined by a programmable module which controls the pressure applied at the orifice of capillary and the handling time of the molten metal alloy. Molten Bismuth (Bi)-based 117 alloy was used to fabricate the metal alloy microspheres. The diameter of microsphere fabricated ranges from 30 to above 500 μm. The proposed method offers a new prototyping technique for fabricating metal microspheres with high uniformity and yield but at much lower cost and relatively higher throughput.