Characterization of the laser cleaving on glass sheets with a line-shape laser beam

A CO2 laser with a line-shape beam was used to cleave a soda-lime glass substrate at various beam-rotation angles to the cutting direction. The stress distribution on the glass substrate cleaved by the laser beam has been analyzed in this study. An uncoupled thermal-elastic analysis was achieved by the ABAQUS software based on the finite element method. The numerical results show that the stress field of the fracture is caused by a complex stress state and the cleavages are significantly affected by the heat diffusion and beam rotation angle. At the rotation angle of zero degree to the cleaving direction, the phenomena of the chip formation have been found due to a large temperature gradient at the cleaving depth of the glass substrate.