Water-jet guided laser drilling of crack-free SiC through-holes

Micro-scale through-holes in SiC play a crucial role in electronics and MEMS. However, drilling of crack-free and densely integrated through-holes in brittle SiC remains a major challenge. Therefore, this study demonstrated the fabrication of crack-free and chipping-less SiC through-holes by water-jet guided laser drilling. The influence of processing parameters on the cracking, chipping, processing speed, and hole dimensions was systematically investigated. Furthermore, dense arrays of crack-free through-holes, which are difficult to fabricate by conventional laser drilling, were successfully fabricated, demonstrating both the miniaturization capability and scalability of the WJGL drilling.