JP5165221B2 - Transparent quartz glass ring manufacturing method and transparent quartz glass ring - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a method for producing a fine quartz glass member having an outer dimension of several millimeters, in particular, an optical member, an optical fiber component, a small diameter used as a connector component used in a receiving device in optical communication such as a personal computer. The present invention relates to a transparent quartz glass ring manufacturing method and a transparent quartz glass ring.

As a method for producing optical quartz glass members, for example, a fine transparent quartz glass ring having an outer diameter of several millimeters for optical communication, a glass rod is machined by a rotating grindstone, a drill, ultrasonic machining, blasting, or the like. A hollow rod or thick pipe is manufactured using a drilling method such as an energy beam processing using a laser beam or an electron beam, a method of perforating heat-softened glass with carbon or the like, or press molding with a mold, and this hollow The inner surface of the rod or thick pipe was polished by wire polishing or the like, and then the pipe was cut into round pieces with a multi-wire saw and the upper and lower surfaces were polished by a double-sided lapping machine or the like.
Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-319026) proposes that the polishing step and the hole making step are simultaneously performed by molding.

  Since optical fiber connectors are connected with their optical axes aligned, the inner and outer diameters of transparent quartz glass rings used in such connector parts are required to have very high accuracy. For this reason, methods for finishing the inner and outer diameters of materials by machining with a high-precision processing machine have been implemented, but long working hours are required, and workers are also required to be skilled in processing costs. It took very much. In addition, since glass parts are hard and brittle materials, only simple shapes can be processed by a machining method, resulting in low production efficiency. Even after cutting, each quartz glass ring must be affixed to the surface plate, polished one by one, removed from the surface plate, and the other surface must be polished in the same way. The method took man-hours.

  On the other hand, it is well known to cut a plate-like workpiece such as metal, leather, glass or the like into a required shape by a laser processing machine. However, when a fine component such as a transparent quartz glass ring, which is a component for an optical fiber connector, is produced, internal processing is required, and surface defects and dimensional accuracy that are not a concern are problematic. Conventional laser processing has not yet achieved the required micron-order level dimensional accuracy.

In addition, with the recent development of laser use, progress in technology for extracting fine holes with a diameter of 1 mm or less with high accuracy has been recognized, but the outer shape becomes 2-3 mm. There was a problem that such accuracy was difficult to achieve.
Compared to laser processing of minute holes, it is necessary to control workpiece or laser position with high precision when cutting a quartz glass member with a contour, but minute products such as optical fiber parts are manufactured with high precision. When it is required to do so, cutting with a powerful laser has a problem because extremely small burrs or narrow burrs are generated.
JP 2000-319026 A

  The present invention provides a method for efficiently producing a high-precision quartz glass member, in particular, a quartz glass ring, without damaging the quartz glass surface and the like, and from a single quartz glass substrate using a laser. A plurality of transparent quartz glass rings are manufactured with high accuracy and efficiency, and handling such as transportation and storage of micro parts after cutting is facilitated, and processing costs are reduced.

  The present invention relates to a cutting method for cutting a transparent quartz glass ring by relatively moving a laser beam and a quartz glass substrate. When a plurality of rings are continuously cut on a quartz glass substrate, the ring A part of the contour is not cut out from the quartz glass substrate, or a part of the contour that forms the outer periphery of the ring is not cut completely by providing a part where the depth of focus does not reach the bottom, and the ring and the quartz glass substrate are partly By making it connected and preventing the ring from dropping from the quartz glass substrate, the handling of the resulting fine quartz glass ring is facilitated.

  As a laser, there is no problem in the type as long as it is a laser developed for cutting processing, and a carbon dioxide gas laser, a YAG laser, or an excimer laser can be used.

  For example, by polishing a plurality of quartz glass rings in a state where a part of the ring, which is a quartz glass member, is connected to the quartz glass substrate by a laser beam from the surface of the quartz glass substrate that remains uncut, or in a needle shape or a thin plate shape The quartz glass substrate and the ring are connected by forcibly separating the remaining quartz glass ring member by pressing the cutting tool from the cutting gap or by applying external pressure such as air pressure or air pressure from above or below. The protruding part is removed, and the ring is released from the quartz glass substrate to efficiently produce a plurality of rings.

  The starting point of the relative movement of the laser beam is inside the inner circumference of the quartz glass ring for manufacturing, and the cutting direction of the laser beam is an angle of 45 to 135 degrees with respect to the tangent of the inner circumference of the ring, preferably an angle of 80 to 100 degrees The generation of dross is suppressed by moving to the inner peripheral portion and further cutting into a circular shape.

According to the present invention, the transparent quartz glass ring can be mass-produced efficiently with an accuracy of the inner diameter of 10 μm or less, and there is almost no surface damage such as dross or chipping. In addition, since the yield is high, the manufacturing cost can be reduced.
The quartz glass substrate is easy to handle because it can be transferred to the next process in a state where a plurality of quartz glass rings are attached, washed and stored.
Therefore, optical parts using quartz glass rings, especially optical fiber parts, connector parts used in optical communication receiving devices such as personal computers, environmentally resistant micromachines, MEMS, NEMS, microreactors used for high-precision analysis, μTAS, etc. It can be applied to.

  When using a general laser such as a carbon dioxide laser that uses a laser beam that is focused on and cut from the surface layer, the quartz glass substrate has a grainy surface and is machined in an opaque state. Any aspect is acceptable.

The focal point can be moved either by moving the laser beam relative to the quartz glass substrate, that is, by moving the focal point optically, or by moving the quartz glass substrate itself without moving the laser beam. But you can.
If the movement locus of the focal point of the laser beam is set as a computer program and the focal position is controlled by the computer so that an arbitrary shape such as a cylinder or a cone can be obtained, the cutting operation can be carried out efficiently.
In this way, cutting of a fine quartz glass member having a shape other than the ring can be arbitrarily performed.

As shown in FIG. 1, when a plurality of rings having arbitrary dimensions are cut from a quartz glass substrate 1, the quartz glass substrate 1 is irradiated with a laser beam from the vertical direction.
It is preferable that the cutting with the laser beam starts from the inner peripheral contour of the ring, and then the outer peripheral contour is cut.
The irradiation start position (S) of the laser beam does not start irradiation from the inner peripheral contour line of the ring as shown in FIG. 2 (1), but starts irradiation from the inner periphery of the ring. When irradiation is started from the inside of the inner periphery, the path to reach the inner periphery 2 is a certain angle with respect to the tangent 3 of the inner periphery as shown in FIGS. 2 (2) and 2 (3), for example The straight line is 45 degrees (FIG. 2 (2)) or 90 degrees (FIG. 2 (3)). A straight line from 135 degrees (not shown) may be used. It is preferable to process as an angle of 80 degrees to 100 degrees.

The cutting line 21 on the outer periphery of the ring that becomes the outline of the transparent quartz glass ring does not reach the bottom surface 11 of the quartz glass substrate 1 at a plurality of locations, and a part of the uncut portion 22 is formed so that it is slightly cut without being completely cut. Try to leave. By leaving the plurality of portions slightly without cutting them, the outer side of the ring is connected to the quartz glass substrate 1, and the product is prevented from being separated from the quartz glass substrate 1 and falling. For this reason, the ring, which is a minute product, is prevented from dropping and being damaged, and the occurrence of burrs, burrs, etc. that are likely to occur at the end of cutting is prevented, and has already been cut by sparks generated during laser cutting. The product is not damaged.
Cutting the outer diameter of the ring while drawing a circle with a laser beam and leaving a part of the circumference forming the ring side surface slightly, even if processed as a state where the quartz glass substrate and the ring side surface are partly connected Good. The size of the uncut portion can be adjusted according to the purpose, can be made thinner, or can be arbitrarily formed at a plurality of locations.

  The uncut portion 22 provided when cutting the ring from the quartz glass substrate 1 is polished from the bottom surface 11 side of the quartz glass substrate 1 and then the uncut portion 22 is removed to separate the ring. Since the ring is released from the substrate by polishing the quartz glass substrate 1, there is no risk of cracking in the glass at the time of release, and it is possible to prevent appearance defects such as burrs, cracks, and scratches from occurring.

  In addition, when a part of the outer periphery that forms the outer surface of the ring is an uncut portion that remains after laser cutting, a needle-like or thin plate-like cutting tool is put into the gap portion that is the cutting trace, and the uncut portion surface from the cut gap The remaining cutting portion may be cut and peeled by pressing against the surface, or the quartz glass member itself with the remaining cutting may be forcedly peeled by pressing a pressing bar smaller than the outer dimension of the quartz glass member from above or below. Also, instead of the push rod, using a concave / convex jig corresponding to a large number of quartz glass rings formed on the quartz glass substrate, the convex part of the jig is in contact with the ring, hydraulic pressure or pneumatic pressure etc. The quartz glass member can be released from the quartz glass substrate by forcibly peeling a large number of rings simultaneously by applying an external pressure of.

In a carbon dioxide laser processing machine, etc., glass is melted with a laser beam, and the melted gas with an assist gas is blown to proceed with laser cutting.
Since quartz glass is melted and cut with a laser beam, white foreign matter (dross) 4 may adhere around the melted portion as shown in FIG. The adhesion of the dross 4 also causes burrs, burrs, scratches, and deterioration of dimensional accuracy.
A general laser cutting machine using a carbon dioxide laser is suitable in terms of cutting speed and mass productivity. However, since the wavelength of the carbon dioxide laser does not penetrate quartz glass, it is focused on the material surface and melted from the surface. To go. In this case, as the fusing progresses from the surface, the laser beam is blocked by the pits on the fusing surface, so there is a limit to the fusing thickness, about 10 mm is the limit, dross is large, and high-precision machining It was difficult.

It is important to suppress the occurrence of dross. The laser processing conditions are set to be inside the inner circumference of the quartz glass ring that produces the starting point of the relative movement of the laser beam, and the angle of the laser beam is changed with respect to the tangent of the inner circumference of the ring FIG. 4 shows the cutting result when cutting. From this result, when the inner periphery of the ring is cut by moving it at an angle of 45 to 135 degrees, preferably 80 to 100 degrees, it is possible to suppress the occurrence of dross that borders the outer edge of the inner diameter hole of the ring. found.
When the laser beam movement start point is on the contour forming line, dross is greatly generated, and a large separation mark remains in the vicinity of the laser beam start point on the circumference of the ring member.

High energy beams such as YAG lasers and excimer lasers are not easily absorbed by transparent quartz glass, so they can be irradiated while focusing on the inside of quartz glass, cutting from inside the transparent material, and moving the laser beam focus. Can be cut into shapes.
However, if a short wavelength excimer laser with high energy is condensed inside from the surface and cutting is performed, not only a specific area is cut, but the cutting area is widened, from the focal point to the top surface. There arises a problem that it becomes widely damaged.
Therefore, it is preferable that the focal point is first adjusted to the depth of the quartz glass substrate and then moved upward. This is because when the focus is first set above the quartz glass substrate, the laser beam is partially cut (blocked) by the cut portion, resulting in poor work efficiency.

As mentioned above, it is important to suppress the generation of dross as a factor for increasing the cutting accuracy. However, it is important to set the laser beam diameter to the optimum value for the workpiece and to control the speed of the laser beam. It becomes.
What must be controlled by the focal speed of the laser beam is control in the XY directions. The optimum speed at which the accuracy in the plane direction is maintained by XY axis control is controlled.

  By setting the laser moving speed to an optimum speed at which the cutting shape becomes a straight body shape, the quartz glass ring member can be cut with high accuracy such as the required inner diameter accuracy within 10 μm. For this reason, it is necessary to control the X and Y axes with a linear motor instead of using a ball screw that is used for normal movement to strictly control the focal speed of the laser beam. It is possible to control the movement at

In the quartz glass member such as the quartz glass ring of the present invention, both surfaces of the quartz glass substrate are first polished, so that both surfaces of the cut quartz glass member are already mirror-like. Since the cut surface is not a grainy surface like mechanical cutting such as a wire saw but a transparent surface, there is an advantage that the entire outer surface of the quartz glass member is a transparent surface.
For this reason, since the quartz glass member of the present invention can easily make the entire surface a transmission surface, it is optimal as a light transmission member when using ultraviolet light, visible light, infrared light, or the like. Utilizing the light transmission characteristics of quartz glass, the product of the present invention can be used for curing a UV curable resin.

In the present invention, since a plurality of cut quartz glass members are partially connected to the quartz glass substrate, they can be transferred to the next process or polished, cleaned, inspected and stored, which is efficient. Yes and easy to handle.
By polishing the quartz glass substrate with the quartz glass member connected to the necessary surface when necessary after the laser processing, the quartz glass member can be polished as many times as necessary.
Also, since the quartz glass substrate with the quartz glass member connected can be washed and dried as it is in the washing process, compared to the case of washing individual quartz glass members, the handling produced by contacting quartz glass products with each other. There are advantages such as no scratches.

Even in the inspection process, multiple quartz glass products can be selected and inspected from those connected to the quartz glass substrate, so if you record the processing order of the products on the quartz glass substrate so that you can see the sampling order, sampling inspection There is also an advantage that the number of inspections can be smaller than the case of randomly selecting from a large number of quartz glass members as in a normal sampling inspection.
Storage is also advantageous in terms of management because it can be stored for each lot by providing a notch portion on the quartz glass substrate.

Example 1
Using a carbon dioxide laser, a quartz glass substrate was irradiated with a laser beam to cut a plurality of quartz glass ring parts.
First, a quartz glass substrate 1 of 130 mm × 130 mm × 2.5 mm optically polished on both sides is pasted on a processing table of a laser processing machine, and a ring component having an outer diameter of 5 mm × an inner diameter of 3 mm × a thickness of 2.5 mm with a carbon dioxide gas laser. And cut out.
The starting point of the relative movement of the laser beam was positioned on the inner side of the inner periphery of the transparent quartz glass ring to be manufactured, and was processed so that the cutting direction was 90 degrees with respect to the tangent to the inner periphery of the ring member. The moving speed of the laser beam in the Z-axis direction was adjusted and set to an optimum speed so that the cut surface did not taper in the depth direction, and was processed by controlling the cut surface to be vertical.

In addition, a ring with a thickness of 2.5 mm is not completely pulled out to form a ring in which an uncut portion remains, and is not completely separated from the quartz glass substrate, and part of the bottom of the substrate And connected. By repeating this operation, a total of 110 rings were cut. Next, the quartz glass substrate is peeled off from the processing table, polished to a predetermined thickness from the bottom surface 11 side of the quartz glass substrate 1 having an uncut portion, the uncut portion 22 is removed, and the ring is released from the quartz glass substrate 1. It was.
When the appearance of the manufactured quartz glass ring was inspected, it was confirmed that there was no chipping or scratches.

Subsequently, 10 out of 110 quartz glass rings were extracted and subjected to dimensional inspection. Six points on the circumference of the quartz glass ring were measured at a magnification of 50 times using a Nikon projector V-12, and the diameter was calculated by a data processor. As a result, the inner diameter of the ring was all within the dimensions of (3 mm + 0.01 mm) to (3 mm-0 mm).
In addition, when a rod pin with a diameter of 3 mm and a diameter of 3.01 mm for which submicron accuracy was guaranteed was inserted, a rod pin with a diameter of 3 mm could be inserted, but a diameter of 3 mm + 0 .01 mm) to (3 mm-0 mm).

Example 2
A quartz glass ring member was manufactured according to Example 1 except that the cutting direction of the laser beam was 45 degrees with respect to the inner tangent of the ring member. Results similar to those in Example 1 were obtained in both appearance and dimensions.

Comparative Example 1
A quartz glass ring member was manufactured according to Example 1 except that the laser beam was positioned so that the starting point of the relative movement of the laser beam was on the inner circumference of the manufactured quartz glass ring. The dross was large, and a peeling mark remained near the laser beam start point on the circumference of the ring member.

Comparative Example 2
A quartz glass ring member was manufactured according to Example 1 except that the laser beam was cut so that the cutting direction of the laser beam was 20 degrees with respect to the tangent line on the inner periphery of the ring member. The dross was large, and peeling marks remained on the inner periphery of the ring member.

Explanatory drawing at the time of cutting out a ring from a quartz glass substrate. Explanatory drawing of a laser beam irradiation start position and a path | route. Sectional drawing explaining dross. The table | surface which shows the influence of the angle of a path | route.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Quartz glass substrate 2 Inner peripheral line 21 Outer peripheral line 22 Uncut part 4 Dross

Claims (3)

When cutting a ring from a quartz glass substrate with a laser beam, part of the outline of the ring is not cut from the quartz glass substrate, or a part where the cutting line on the outer periphery of the ring does not reach the bottom surface of the quartz glass substrate is formed. A method for manufacturing a quartz glass ring in which the ring is connected to a quartz glass substrate, the inner side of the inner periphery of the ring being the starting point of cutting, and an angle of 45 to 135 degrees with respect to a tangent to the inner periphery of the ring A method for producing a transparent quartz glass ring in which the inner circumference of the ring is cut by moving a laser beam. 2. The surface according to claim 1, further comprising polishing the remaining surface, pressing a needle-like or thin plate-like cutting tool against the remaining cutting surface from the cutting gap, or moving the ring itself connected to the quartz glass substrate upward or downward. A method for producing a transparent quartz glass ring in which a ring is forcibly separated from a quartz glass substrate by forcibly peeling from a quartz glass substrate by a push rod or by applying an external pressure such as hydraulic pressure or air pressure. A quartz glass substrate in a state in which a plurality of quartz glass rings manufactured by the method according to claim 1 are partially connected to the quartz glass substrate.

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