Multi-beam parallel processing and chemical finishing of silicon for microcavities in inkjet printer heads

Improvement in printing quality and speed on inkjet printers requires a reduction in cross talk between ink cavities. To this end, cavities can be better produced with a high aspect ratio on thick silicon, which makes wafer handling easy. A silicon wafer is ablated with a pulsed laser beam to form a through-hole and then the wafer is dipped into a chemical bath to hollow out a cavity. Debris and deposit around and in those holes are washed away. Multi-beam parallel processing is essential for high throughput. Plural points on the wafer are drilled with a line of equally intense beams, which are generated by a diffractive beam splitter. The splitter’s performance affects process yield and cost. This hybrid process has been applied to inkjet cavity manufacture to render it competitive and cost-effective.