Micro-Grooving of Glass Using Small-Diameter Diamond Grindstone with Ultrasonic Vibration

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to achieve grooving on glass substrates with high levels of efficiency and precision with the use of a diamond grindstone with a small diameter in the range of 1.0-1.8 mm. Mechanical material removal by grinding has high efficiency and enables process control for creating complicated forms, but has a drawback of generating chippings on the processed surface of the brittle glass material. The study gave ultrasonic vibration of 10 μm at 20 kHz in the thrust direction to the rotating small-diameter diamond grindstone in the grinding process, in order to attain high levels of efficiency and precision in micro-grooving of glass. The grooving approach with ultrasonic vibration did create some minor chippings, but succeeded in meeting the target of reducing the average size of chippings around the groove to 0.1 mm or less.