9500162 Bifano The research will investigate a new manufacturing process for optically encoded information disks (eg: compact disks or CDs). Two major changes in the current manufacturing techniques will be undertaken; namely, (1) replacement of the glass master disk substrate by a tough ceramic, which will be used as the injection mold stamper, and (2) replacement of electroplating, peeling, protecting, polishing, and punching operations by a single ion machining step. The most important and technically challenging step is the ion machining process for recording CD information on the master disk. The technique will be broad beam ion machining though a mask to produce billions of features with uniform good quality on a single substrate. If this novel precision manufacturing strategy can be proven for CDs, it carries the potential to complete against other micromachining techniques. This research has the potential to cut manufacturing process time by half reducing both manufacturing cost and work in process inventory. Further, by eliminating electroplating and other steps requiring stringent environmental controls, ion beam machining can provide the alternate choice for an environmentally benign manufacturing process. With the boom of information technology, mass storage capabilities in CDs, this manufacturing process holds the promise for continually driving the cost of information dissemination.
