Ab initio Physical Analysis of Single Dimensional Laser Machining of Silicon Nitride

The capability of pulsed Nd:YAG lasers to carry out the machining of Si3N4 was explored in this study. An ab initio integrated machining model was developed by taking into account the in-situ physical phenomena such as evaporation and decomposition of the ceramic and effect of their recoil pressure on the melt pool expulsion. The model based machined depth prediction for a given number of pulses was in close agreement with the actual measured depth of the machined cavity, thus rendering the model useful for advance machined depth predictions under a given set of processing conditions.