Analysis of Cutting Glass Sheets by Laser-Induced Thermal Stress

Abstract

Scribing, or the full-body cutting of glass substrates, can be achieved by thermal stress that is induced by laser heating. In such processing, the substrate’s temperature distribution is controlled by scanning the heat source or a pair of heat and cooling sources for generating sufficiently high tensile stress to propagate a crack. As a result of crack propagation that follows the laser beam, the substrate can be divided along the laser beam scanning path. By analyzing the temperature and the thermal stress in the numerical simulations, we can estimate suitable processing conditions. How the crack propagates can also be estimated by analyzing the stress intensity factors. Numerical simulations supported clarifying the mechanism of crack propagation and devising new processing methods for controlling crack propagation.