Microstructuring of materials by pulsed-laser focusing and projection technique

Presently, there is a going demand from the industry for microprocessing of materials. In particular, for application in the field of microsystem technology it is necessary to produce structures with dimensions down to the micrometer scale in various materials. We have been investigating the structuring of silicon, anodic bondable PYREX glass, Al2O3-ceramic and PMMA by means of laser microprocessing using an excimer laser and TEA CO2 laser. Both the mask projection technique and the focusing technique have been employed. We will show the dependence of the ablation thresholds and the ablation rates on the laser parameters and on the physical properties of the materials, i.e. absorption coefficient, melting point and thermal conductivity. During and after the laser processing of different glasses we observed the formation of cracks in the laser irradiated region and partly in the glass wafer surrounding the drilled holes. Those crack formations should be due to the developed of thermally induced mechanical stress in the glass.