Transient Structural Modifications of Sintered Commercial Aluminum Nitride Ceramics Resulting from Low Fluence Excimer Laser Irradiation

Abstract

Sintered aluminum nitride (A1N) ceramics are attractive materials, for their unique physical properties, i.e. a high thermal conductivity, similar to metals, a high electrical resistivity (10¹¹-10¹⁴ Ω .cm) and a thermal expansion coefficient (4.5 10^{- 6} °C) matched to silicon. Since excimer lasers have recently proved to be efficient in ceramic processing and machining for industry, excimer processing of sintered A1N plates has been performed in this work. In particular, results of low fluence excimer processing are here reported for the first time, which enlightens the physico-chemistry underlying the process.