Numerical and Experimental Research on the Laser-Water Jet Scribing of Silicon

Monocrystalline silicon has shown great potential in constructing advanced devices in semiconductor, photoelectric, and photochemistry fields. The fabrication of micro-grooves with large depth-to-width ratio (DTWR) and low taper is in urgent demand as this type of groove can significantly promote the device performance. The grooves with such characterizations can hardly be achieved by conventional machining techniques owing to the high hardness and brittleness of silicon. Laser waterjet (LWJ) machining is a promising solution, which is capable of ablating materials with less or no heat defects, well machining precision, and consistency. Therefore, this paper firstly established a theoretical model describing the interaction between silicon and LWJ. Through the numerical simulation, the evolution of temperature and stress distribution at the machining region was analyzed. Variation experiments were carried out correspondingly. On these bases, scribing experiments were put forward aimed at discovering the influence of machining parameters on groove morphology. Optimized scribing strategy which is capable of realizing the construction of a micro-groove with DTWR of 19.03 and taper of 0.013 was obtained. The results contributed to the understanding of LWJ processing of silicon on a small scale as well as broadening the application prospects of LWJ for treating other semiconductor devices.