Influence of the confinement on laser-induced dry etching at the rear side of fused silica

Abstract

Laser-induced etching at the rear side of transparent material enables high-quality machining results. However, the mechanism is still not completely recognized which would allow further optimization. Therefore, multi-pulsed laser-induced backside dry etching with different thick photoresist films was studied experimentally for air (MP-LIBDE) and water confinements (cMP-LIBDE). The water confinement causes differences in photoresist ablation morphology and etching rate in dependence on laser fluence, film thickness and pulse number. Owing to the water confinement, the extent of photoresist film spallation and the etching rate slope difference in low and high fluence ranges are reduced. In particular, the etching rate of cMP-LIBDE keeps constant with different film thicknesses in contrast to MP-LIBDE. Two effects that are related to the water confinement, mechanical confinement and heat transfer alterations, are analysed and discussed in relation to the differences between MP-LIBDE and cMP-LIBDE.