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A breakthrough in ultrafast laser technology enables non-destructive micron-scale cutting of diamonds.

2025-12-16

A breakthrough in ultrafast laser technology enables non-destructive micron-scale cutting of diamonds.

In recent years, ultrafast laser technology has achieved a breakthrough in the field of diamond processing. By precisely controlling pulses on the femtosecond or picosecond timescale, it has successfully enabled micron-scale, non-destructive cutting of diamonds. This technology leverages the high energy density of ultrashort pulses to induce rapid physical and chemical changes within the material in an extremely brief time frame, causing the diamond to vaporize directly from its solid state while bypassing the thermal damage and microcracks typically associated with conventional mechanical cutting. For example, the QCBD laser slicing technology developed by Dazhu Semiconductor overcomes the challenge posed by the large angle difference between the diamond cleavage plane and the slicing direction through precise control of laser energy and beam morphology. As a result, the surface roughness of the peeled layer is kept below 3 μm, and the laser-induced damage layer is reduced to just 20 μm, significantly improving the processing yield.

The technological core lies in the “cold-processing” characteristic of ultrashort lasers—owing to their extremely short pulse durations, heat has insufficient time to diffuse into other regions of the material, thereby confining the heat-affected zone to the micrometer scale. Using a spatial light modulator, the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has achieved parallel multi-focus processing, fabricating spherical microstructures on diamond surfaces with a roughness below 0.16 μm, thus demonstrating the technology’s high precision and efficiency. Moreover, research on the interaction between ultrashort lasers and matter has expanded into the field of material modification—for instance, by leveraging the photogenerated sliding ferroelectric polarization switching mechanism, new avenues have been opened for the functionalization of diamonds. Currently, this technology is gradually being applied in high-end fields such as high-performance electronic devices and quantum computing, driving diamonds to transition from being merely an “ultra-hard material” to a “multifunctional material.”

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