In this paper, laser ablation of widely used metal (Al, Cu. stainless-steel), semiconductor (Si), transparent material (glass, sapphire), ceramic (Al₂O₃, AlN) and polymer (PI, PMMA) in industry were systematically studied with pulse width from nanosecond (5-100ns), picosecond (6-10ps) to sub-picosecond (0.8-0.95ps). A critical damage zone (CDZ) of up to 100um with ns laser, ≤50um with ps laser, and ≤20um with sub-ps laser, respectively was observed as a criteria of selecting the laser pulse width. The effects of laser processing parameters on speed and efficiency were also investigated. This is to explore how to provide industry users the best laser solution for device micro-fabrication with best price. Our studies of cutting and drilling with ns, ps, and sub-ps lasers indicate that it is feasible to achieve user accepted quality and speed with cost-effective and reliable laser by optimizing processing conditions.

Date Published: 14 March 2016
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 9735, Laser Applications in Microelectronic and Optoelectronic Manufacturing (LAMOM) XXI, 973514 (14 March 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2220264

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9735:
Laser Applications in Microelectronic and Optoelectronic Manufacturing (LAMOM) XXI
Beat Neuenschwander; Stephan Roth; Costas P. Grigoropoulos; Tetsuya Makimura, Editor(s)