SIMULTANEOUS MACHINING OF PARALLEL GROOVES IN SNO2 THIN-FILMS USING AND-YAG LASER AND A KINOFORM

A kinoform is used to split the beam of a Nd:YAG laser into six beams. The laser beams are, by means of optical fibers and collimating-focus ing optics, transferred to the surface to be machined. Thus multiple g rooves can be machined simultaneously. For demonstration, 100-mu m-wid e grooves are simultaneously machined into a SnO2 thin film deposited on a glass substrate. The resulting grooves are well isolated. This re sult shows that the technique could be used, for example, in solar cel l manufacturing to increase the efficiency of laser scribing.