Sapphire is a material with hardness second only to diamond in nature. Due to its excellent light transmittance, high temperature resistance and corrosion resistance, it has become a core material in high-end consumer electronics, optical devices and semiconductor fields. However, its extremely high hardness and brittleness make traditional processing methods face challenges such as edge collapse and micro cracks, and it is difficult to balance yield and efficiency. With its non-contact and ultra-precision processing characteristics, laser cutting machines break through the process bottleneck of sapphire manufacturing and promote the industry to upgrade in a more efficient and intelligent direction.

 

Traditional mechanical processing relies on diamond wheel cutting, which is prone to edge collapse of more than 50μm and is inefficient when processing special-shaped structures; although chemical etching can achieve complex graphics, it is seriously polluting and time-consuming. Laser cutting technology compresses the heat-affected zone to less than 5μm through the "cold processing" characteristics of ultrafast lasers, almost eliminating thermal damage to the material. In the processing of sapphire mirrors for smart watches, ultraviolet lasers cut curved edges with an accuracy of ±2μm, the cuts are as smooth as mirrors, the transmittance loss is less than 1%, and the drop resistance is 50% higher than that of traditional processes.

 

In the semiconductor and optoelectronic fields, the processing requirements for sapphire substrates are becoming increasingly sophisticated. In Mini LED/Micro LED wafer cutting, picosecond lasers separate micron-level chip units on 2-inch sapphire substrates at a speed of 300mm/s, which is 5 times more efficient than grinding wheel scribing and 30% higher in edge strength.

 

Innovations in laser technology continue to promote process breakthroughs. Through the non-diffraction characteristics of Bessel beams, lasers can process microchannels with a depth-to-width ratio of more than 10:1 inside sapphire, providing new possibilities for biochips; water-guided laser technology combines lasers with micro-water jets to simultaneously cool and remove slag, so that the cutting speed of 1mm thick sapphire is increased to 20mm/s, taking into account both efficiency and quality.