Curviform Breaking of Soda-Lime Glass Plate by Irradiation of YAG Laser

Abstract

Cutting of brittle materials such as glass is usually made with a diamond scriber or a rotary roller chisel. It is said that the mechanical cutting of glass using the scriber or the chisel leads to lower cutting quality. A non-contacting cutting method using a CO2 laser is recently being studied enthusiastically. Precision breaking of glass and other brittle materials, however, has not been made. Curviform breaking of transparent glass plates by YAG laser was studied on the soda-lime glass specimens of which surface was painted marker ink (magic ink) for absorber of YAG laser beam. Influence of a laser tracing curvature on the deviation of broken line was examined. It was found from the experiments that smaller curvatures provide larger deviation of breaking location from the laser tracing locus, which reflects directly to lower quality breaking of glass. © 1994, The Society of Materials Science, Japan. All rights reserved.