Laser drilling of via micro-holes in single-crystal semiconductor substrates using a 1070 nm fibre laser with millisecond pulse widths

Micro-machining of semiconductors is relevant to fabrication challenges within the semiconductor industry. For via holes for solar cells, laser drilling potentially avoids deep plasma etching which requires sophisticated equipment and corrosive, high purity gases. Other applications include backside...

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Main Authors: Maclean, Jessica O., Hodson, Jonathan R., Voisey, K.T.
Format: Article
Published: SPIE 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29402/
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author Maclean, Jessica O.
Hodson, Jonathan R.
Voisey, K.T.
author_facet Maclean, Jessica O.
Hodson, Jonathan R.
Voisey, K.T.
author_sort Maclean, Jessica O.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Micro-machining of semiconductors is relevant to fabrication challenges within the semiconductor industry. For via holes for solar cells, laser drilling potentially avoids deep plasma etching which requires sophisticated equipment and corrosive, high purity gases. Other applications include backside loading of cold atoms into atom chips and ion traps for quantum physics research, for which holes through the semiconductor substrate are needed. Laser drilling, exploiting the melt ejection material removal mechanism, is used industrially for drilling hard to machine materials such as superalloys. Lasers of the kind used in this work typically form holes with diameters of 100’s of microns and depths of a few millimetres in metals. Laser drilling of semiconductors typically uses short pulses of UV or long wavelength IR to achieve holes as small as 50 microns. A combination of material processes occurs including laser absorption, heating, melting, vaporization with vapour and dust particle ejection and resolidification. An investigation using materials with different fundamental material parameters allows the suitability of any given laser for the processing of semiconductors to be determined. We report results on the characterization of via holes drilled using a 2000 W maximum power 1070 nm fibre laser with 1-20 ms pulses using single crystal silicon, gallium arsenide and sapphire. Holes were characterised in cross-section and plan view. Significantly, relatively long pulses were effective even for wide bandgap substrates which are nominally transparent at 1070 nm. Examination of drilled samples revealed holes had been successfully generated in all materials via melt ejection.
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spelling nottingham-294022020-05-04T17:09:20Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29402/ Laser drilling of via micro-holes in single-crystal semiconductor substrates using a 1070 nm fibre laser with millisecond pulse widths Maclean, Jessica O. Hodson, Jonathan R. Voisey, K.T. Micro-machining of semiconductors is relevant to fabrication challenges within the semiconductor industry. For via holes for solar cells, laser drilling potentially avoids deep plasma etching which requires sophisticated equipment and corrosive, high purity gases. Other applications include backside loading of cold atoms into atom chips and ion traps for quantum physics research, for which holes through the semiconductor substrate are needed. Laser drilling, exploiting the melt ejection material removal mechanism, is used industrially for drilling hard to machine materials such as superalloys. Lasers of the kind used in this work typically form holes with diameters of 100’s of microns and depths of a few millimetres in metals. Laser drilling of semiconductors typically uses short pulses of UV or long wavelength IR to achieve holes as small as 50 microns. A combination of material processes occurs including laser absorption, heating, melting, vaporization with vapour and dust particle ejection and resolidification. An investigation using materials with different fundamental material parameters allows the suitability of any given laser for the processing of semiconductors to be determined. We report results on the characterization of via holes drilled using a 2000 W maximum power 1070 nm fibre laser with 1-20 ms pulses using single crystal silicon, gallium arsenide and sapphire. Holes were characterised in cross-section and plan view. Significantly, relatively long pulses were effective even for wide bandgap substrates which are nominally transparent at 1070 nm. Examination of drilled samples revealed holes had been successfully generated in all materials via melt ejection. SPIE 2015-07-01 Article PeerReviewed Maclean, Jessica O., Hodson, Jonathan R. and Voisey, K.T. (2015) Laser drilling of via micro-holes in single-crystal semiconductor substrates using a 1070 nm fibre laser with millisecond pulse widths. Proceedings of SPIE. Industrial Laser Applications Symposium (ILAS 2015), 9657 (965701). ISSN 0277-786X laser drilling semiconductor hole via metal wrap thru laser 1 micron wavelength silicon sapphire gallium arsenide wafer http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceeding.aspx?articleid=2389035 doi:10.1117/12.2175898 doi:10.1117/12.2175898
spellingShingle laser drilling
semiconductor
hole
via
metal wrap thru
laser
1 micron wavelength
silicon
sapphire
gallium arsenide
wafer
Maclean, Jessica O.
Hodson, Jonathan R.
Voisey, K.T.
Laser drilling of via micro-holes in single-crystal semiconductor substrates using a 1070 nm fibre laser with millisecond pulse widths
title Laser drilling of via micro-holes in single-crystal semiconductor substrates using a 1070 nm fibre laser with millisecond pulse widths
title_full Laser drilling of via micro-holes in single-crystal semiconductor substrates using a 1070 nm fibre laser with millisecond pulse widths
title_fullStr Laser drilling of via micro-holes in single-crystal semiconductor substrates using a 1070 nm fibre laser with millisecond pulse widths
title_full_unstemmed Laser drilling of via micro-holes in single-crystal semiconductor substrates using a 1070 nm fibre laser with millisecond pulse widths
title_short Laser drilling of via micro-holes in single-crystal semiconductor substrates using a 1070 nm fibre laser with millisecond pulse widths
title_sort laser drilling of via micro-holes in single-crystal semiconductor substrates using a 1070 nm fibre laser with millisecond pulse widths
topic laser drilling
semiconductor
hole
via
metal wrap thru
laser
1 micron wavelength
silicon
sapphire
gallium arsenide
wafer
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29402/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29402/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29402/