Multi-focal Picosecond laser vertical slicing of 6 inch 4H-SiC ingot

Ultrafast laser direct writing inside materials has garnered significant attention for its applications in techniques like two-photon polymerization, stealth dicing and vertical slicing. 4H-Silicon Carbide (4H-SiC) vertical slicing has wide potentials from research to industry due to low kerf loss and high slicing speed. In this paper, to improve the vertical slicing processing quality and lower the separation strength, we introduce a multi-focal vertical slicing method with spherical aberrations caused by refractive index eliminated. Additionally, by shaping the wavefront of picosecond laser, our experiments show the lower latitudinal ablation zone and higher crack propagation of multi-focal vertical slicing method on 4H-SiC, demonstrating that this method not only reduces filamentations to minimize ablation damage, but also significantly reduce the tensile strength during separation. We achieve a 6 inch 4H-SiC ingot vertical slicing and separation using 4-focal slicing. This method shows various potentials in laser processing.