Electron Beam Melting: Moving from Macro- to Micro- and Nanoscale

This paper presents some results achieved in the biomedical applications of the EBM^® technology, and describes the resolved and unresolved challenges presented by modern medical implant manufacturing. In particular it outlines the issues related to the cellular structure design and metal surface modification. Moving to precision control of the metal surface at a micro-and sub-micrometer scale is a serious challenge to the EBM^® processing, because it uses the powder with average grain size of about 0.04 to 0.1 mm. Though manufacturing of components with solid-mesh geometry and porous surfaces using EBM^® is quite possible, post-processing (for example chemical or electrochemical) is needed to achieve desired control of the surface at smaller scales to realize full potential of the technology for biomedical applications.