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. 2020 Mar 22;11(3):327.
doi: 10.3390/mi11030327.

One-Step Femtosecond Laser Stealth Dicing of Quartz

Caterina Gaudiuso  1 , Annalisa Volpe  2 , Antonio Ancona  1
Affiliations

One-Step Femtosecond Laser Stealth Dicing of Quartz

Caterina Gaudiuso et al. Micromachines (Basel). .

Abstract

We report on a one-step method for cutting 250-µm-thick quartz plates using highly focused ultrashort laser pulses with a duration of 200 fs and a wavelength of 1030 nm. We show that the repetition rate, the scan speed, the pulse overlap and the pulse energy directly influence the cutting process and quality. Therefore, a suitable choice of these parameters was necessary to get single-pass stealth dicing with neat and flat cut edges. The mechanism behind the stealth dicing process was ascribed to tensile stresses generated by the relaxation of the compressive stresses originated in the laser beam focal volume during irradiation in the bulk material. Such stresses produced micro-fractures whose controlled propagation along the laser beam path led to cutting of the samples.

Keywords: heat accumulation; quartz; stealth dicing; transparent materials; ultrashort laser pulses.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experimental set-up used for the cutting experiments.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Optical microscope images of the cut edges obtained with a fixed pulse energy Ep=20 µJ and different repetition rates of 50 kHz and 100 kHz and pulse overlap pps= 48 and 96 (a–d).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Optical microscope images of the cut edges obtained with pps = 24 and 10, at 50 kHz repetition rate and a pulse energy of 20 µJ. The reduction of the pps from 24 to 10 causes the cut edge not to be perpendicular to the target surface. In (a), the image is almost entirely on focus. In (b), the part of the cutting edge above the laser damage trace is out of focus, thus indicating a different height with respect to the part below.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(a–d) Side view of the cut edges obtained at 50 kHz, at the scan speed of 1 mm/s and four different pulse energies. The top (e,g,i,k) and the bottom (f,h,j,l) views are also shown.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Top (a) and bottom (b) surface of the target before laser irradiation.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Three-dimensional profiles and line profiles of the cuts obtained at 50 kHz, scan speed of 1 mm/s and pulse energy of (a,c) 35 µJ and (b,d) 20 µJ, respectively.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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