Process Analysis and Topography Evaluation for Monocrystalline Silicon Laser Cutting-Off

Due to the characteristics of high brittleness and low fracture toughness of monocrystalline silicon, its high precision and high-quality cutting have great challenges. Aiming at the urgent need of wafer cutting with high efficiency, this paper investigates the influence law of different laser processes on the size of the groove and the machining affected zone of laser cutting. The experimental results show that when laser cutting monocrystalline silicon, in addition to generating a groove, there will also be a machining affected zone on both sides of the groove and the size of both will directly affect the cutting quality. After wiping the thermal products generated by cutting on the material surface, the machining affected zone and the recast layer in the cutting seam can basically be eliminated to generate a wider cutting seam and the surface after wiping is basically the same as that before cutting. Increasing the laser cutting times will increase the width of the material’s machining affected zone and the groove width after chip removal. When the cutting times are less than 80, increasing the cutting times will increase the groove width at the same time; but, after the cutting times exceed 80, the groove width abruptly decreases and then slowly increases. In addition, the lower the laser scanning speed, the larger the width of the material’s machining affected zone and the width of the groove after chip removal. The increase in laser frequency will increase the crack width and the crack width after chip removal but decrease the machining affected zone width. The laser pulse width has a certain effect on the cutting quality but it does not show regularity. When the pulse width is 0.3 ns the cutting quality is the best and when the pulse width is 0.15 ns the cutting quality is the worst.