Micro-grooving of glass using micro-abrasive jet machining

Abrasive jet machining (AJM) is similar to sand blasting, and effectively removes hard and brittle materials. AJM has been applied to rough working such as deburring and rough finishing. With the increase of the needs for machining of ceramics, semiconductors, electronic devices and LCD’s, micro-AJM has become a useful technique for micro-machining. This paper describes the performance of micro-AJM in the micro-grooving of glass. The diameter of the hole-type and the width of the line-type groove are 80 μm. Experimental results showed good performance in micro-grooving of glass; however, the size of machined groove increased about 2–4 μm. With the fine-tuning of the masking process and the compensation for film wear, micro-AJM could be effectively applied to the micro-machining of semiconductors, electronic devices and LCD.