AGC has established a joint research program within the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo in 2015 to conduct collaborative research aimed at creating cutting-edge glass technologies. Recently, a research team led by Lecturer Yusuke Ito, and Project Research Associate Yanming Zhang from the University of Tokyo in collaboration with a research group from AGC, have invented a new technique (a joint patent application has been filed by the University of Tokyo and AGC) that enables laser processing of transparent materials such as glass at a speed one million times faster than conventional methods. This achievement was published online in the US scientific journal “Science Advances” on June 11, 2025.
In recent years, the amount of information processing has increased with the spread of generative AI, and faster and more power-efficient semiconductors are now required. As a result, there is a growing trend toward using glass substrates as mounting substrates for semiconductor chips, which offer excellent rigidity and flatness.
Currently, glass substrates are mainly processed by laser ablation or laser modification and etching processes. However, the former is slow in processing time, while the latter has large environmental impact, such as waste liquid disposal.
In this joint research, by irradiating two types of lasers with different pulse widths simultaneously and from oblique directions to the glass surface, the team succeeded in increasing the processing speed by a million times compared to laser ablation processing. This method, which enables high-speed processing of glass substrates using only lasers, is more efficient and has a lower environmental impact than existing processing methods and is expected to be put to practical use in the semiconductor field in the future.