Quartz glass is an amorphous material consisting of a single component, silicon dioxide (SiO2). Its outstanding optical, mechanical, and thermal properties make it a critical raw material in high-tech fields.
Primary applications:
- Laboratory equipment: Including labware and quartz furnace tubes.
- Optical field: Spectrometers, infrared cameras, prisms and lenses, high-temperature inspection windows, laser components.
- Communications: Preforms for optical fibres, consumables for optical fibre drawings.
- Semiconductor industry: High-temperature containers and supports for semiconductor wafer processing and chip production.
- Medical instruments: Components for biosensors, cell culture dishes and flow cytometers.
- Photovoltaic industry: Containers for melting polycrystalline silicon materials, such as quartz crucibles.
- Aerospace: Materials for space windows and composite materials for airborne antenna covers.
Luxinar’s 1kW OEM 100iX and 175W SR 15i sealed CO2 lasers successfully cut quartz glass of thicknesses from 1 to 8mm. Rotary cutting, straight line cutting and small circle cutting result in narrow kerf widths, smooth cut edges, minimal heat-affected zones and low thermal deformation.
Quartz glass material has a high absorption rate for CO2 lasers with a wavelength of 10.6µm. This means that quartz glass efficiently converts laser energy into heat, resulting in rapid localised vaporisation of the material.
CO2 laser cutting is a non-contact processing method, which means it does not produce scratches on the quartz glass material or cause physical damage to its structure. By adjusting the power and other cutting parameters, CO2 lasers can cut quartz glass of different thicknesses, providing great flexibility.