Hefaistos Manufacturing Laboratory (A062)

This is a modern and comprehensive manufacturing laboratory facility, with special focus in integrating and packaging nano-devices and micro-systems. It comprises a computer numerical control (CNC) machining shop (lathe, milling machine, electrical discharge machining-EDM) with additional manual tools (drill press, grinder, disk saw cutter etc) and a rapid prototyping section (color 3D printing, precision milling RP, paper laminated object manufacturing-LOM), along with a 3-D laser scanner and stylus profilometers for reverse engineering. It also includes polymer thermoforming equipment for an array of plastic manufacturing, as well as polymer and metal ultrasonic welding (seam and spot) machinery.

The robotic laser section includes a precision Nd:YAG station with XYZ positioning and optical camera, a laser diode station with fiber optics guided by a SCARA robot with a vision system, and a micro-cutting laser, along with a micro-plasma and micro-GTA welding head driven by an articulated 6-dof manipulator. The two robots in this section are also configured for general purpose assembly and testing, and are complemented by a haptic interface system. Analytical equipment includes two high-resolution infrared cameras, a high-speed optical camera, and full darkroom facilities for developing photographic masks for lithography.

The materials analysis part of the laboratory includes an ultrasonic imaging station, a laser acoustic emission instrument, a microhardness tester, high-temperature thermal/dynamic mechanical analyser, simultaneous thermal analyser (thermogravimetric analysis, differential thermal analysis and scanning differential calorimetry), a powder X-ray diffraction system (XRD), a micro-CT (computer tomography) 3D scanner, a FTIR and a Raman spectrophotometer, and a voltammetry station (function generator, oscilloscope, digital multimeter). The laboratory is fully computer-automated in its operation and monitoring, through state of the art computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software.

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