Laying the foundations of ultrafast stealth dicing of silicon with picosecond laser pulses at 2-μm wavelength

Numerous applications are enabled by the possibility to modify transparent materials in the bulk with ultrashort laser pulses. In glasses the inscription of waveguides and nanogratings, welding and dicing processes are finding their way into the industrial world. The transfer of these established processes to narrow band-gap materials is subject of current research activities. Here, silicon as the current most important semiconductor material is of particular interest.