Fast and efficient bottom-up cutting of soda-lime glass using GHz bursts of short laser pulses

• Published in: Optics and lasers in engineering Vol. 183; p. 108490
• Main Authors: Mackevičiūtė, Miglė, Dudutis, Juozas, Gečys, Paulius
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2024
• Subjects: Bottom-up glass cutting; GHz burst processing; Soda-lime glass ablation; Bottom-up glass cutting; Soda-lime glass ablation; GHz burst processing
• ISSN: 0143-8166
• DOI: 10.1016/j.optlaseng.2024.108490

•Demonstration of the bottom-up cutting of multi-mm-thick soda-lime glass using GHz burst regime with picosecond laser pulses.•Comprehensive analysis of literature showing that the bottom-up cutting with picosecond pulses and GHz bursts is the fastest and the most efficient compared to other subtractive laser glass cutting methods using ≈1 µm wavelength.•Demonstration of the method versatility for cutting glass of various thicknesses from 1 mm to 18.8 mm, an oblique cylinder with a 35-degree slant angle, and a complex contour. Recent studies have shown that higher number of pulses per GHz burst results in a more efficient glass removal mechanism for top-down processing. However, there is lack of research implementing GHz bursts in bottom-up processing, which is credible even for cm-thick glass processing as straight walls can be formed. In this work, GHz burst regimes consisting of more than 20 pulses were investigated for soda-lime glass bottom-up cutting. The highest cutting speed of 4.2 mm/s and linear cutting efficiency of 0.13 mm/J were achieved when cutting 4.8 mm-thick glass with picosecond pulses in GHz bursts at optimized conditions. In addition, we have demonstrated cutting of glass with thickness ranging from 1 mm to 18.8 mm, an oblique cylinder with a 35-degree slant angle, and complex contour cutting. The results were compared with the state-of-the-art. To the best of our knowledge, we have shown the highest cutting speed and efficiency compared to other studies on subtractive laser cutting of 1 mm thickness glass. Furthermore, alternative figures of merit were used to compare the reported cutting studies of various thickness glass. The relative cutting speed and efficiency achieved in this study were shown to be up to two orders of magnitude higher compared to the studies using ≈1 µm wavelength. Extensive cutting capabilities together with high cutting speeds make bottom-up cutting with GHz bursts a highly compelling technique for glass processing.