There are provided a stage for cutting a substrate, and a substrate-cutting apparatus. The stage includes a supporting member for having the substrate mounted thereon, including a plurality of cell areas, and defining a groove line having a groove shape between the plurality of cell areas, and a first tube line inserted into the groove line to contact an inner wall of the groove line, and having an open upper portion.

Irregularly-shaped display panel and cutting method are provided. The display panel includes a display region and a non-display region surrounding the display region. The non-display region includes at least one irregularly-shaped boundary. The irregularly-shaped display panel further includes a substrate and the substrate includes a base substrate. The non-display region includes laser cutting trajectories. An orthographic projection of each of the laser cutting trajectories to the base substrate at least partially overlaps an orthographic projection of a corresponding irregularly-shaped boundary. Each of the laser cutting trajectories includes a cutting entry point and a cutting exit point at two ends thereof, and at least one of the cutting entry point and the cutting exit point does not overlap the orthographic projection of the corresponding irregularly-shaped boundary. The laser cutting trajectories are used as a laser cutting path.

A laser processing apparatus includes a chuck table that holds an SiC ingot on a holding surface, a laser beam irradiation unit that positions the focal point of a laser beam to a depth equivalent to the thickness of a wafer to be produced from a first surface and that irradiates the SiC ingot with the laser beam to form a separation layer arising from separation of SiC into Si and C and extension of cracks along a c-plane. A movement unit relatively moves the chuck table and the laser beam irradiation unit, and a separation layer inspecting unit executes irradiation with inspection light with such a wavelength as to have transmissibility with respect to the SiC ingot and be reflected by the separation layer, and inspects the separation layer from the intensity of reflected light. The holding surface has a color that absorbs the inspection light.

A method for cutting a glass element (2) with a processing laser (4) is intended to enable a particularly simple process sequence with a high degree of reliability and a low level of equipment expenditure. For this purpose, according to the invention, the processing laser (4) is operated in a first processing step as a perforation laser, with which a perforation (12) is produced in the glass element (2) along an intended cutting line (8), whereby the processing laser (4) is operated in a second processing step with a modified laser beam (14) as a separating laser, with which a splitting of the filaments (6) forming the perforation (12) is effected.

A method is disclosed for dividing a composite material in which a brittle material layer and a resin layer are laminated, including: a resin removing step of irradiating the resin layer with a laser beam oscillated from a first laser source along a scheduled dividing line of the composite material to form a processing groove along the scheduled dividing line; a brittle material removing step of irradiating the brittle material layer with a laser beam oscillated from an ultrashort pulsed laser source along the scheduled dividing line to form a processing mark along the scheduled dividing line; and a brittle material layer dividing step of generating thermal stress in the brittle material layer by irradiating the brittle material layer with a laser beam oscillated from a second laser source from the opposite side to the resin layer to thereby divide the brittle material layer.

A device for modifying a region of a substrate includes a laser radiation source for pulsed laser radiation. A transmissive medium having a higher intensity-dependent refraction index than air is arranged between a laser machining head and the substrate such that an individual pulse of the pulsed laser radiation from the laser machining head is deflected through the transmissive medium and across a thickness of the substrate from an original focal depth to a focal depth different from the original focal depth to modify the substrate along a beam axis of the laser radiation in a region of a recess or through-opening to be formed in the substrate without removing an amount of the substrate material necessary to form the recess or through-opening. A length between the focal depths is greater than and extends across the thickness of the substrate.

A method for separating a substrate of a brittle-hard material is provided. The method includes the steps of introducing defects into the substrate at a spacing from one another along a separation line using at least one pulsed laser beam; selecting an average spacing between neighboring defects and a number of laser pulses for generating a respective defect such that a breaking stress (σ.sub.B) for separating the substrate along the separation line is smaller than a first reference stress (σ.sub.R1) of the substrate and such that an edge strength σ.sub.K of the separation edge obtained after separation is greater than a second reference stress (σ.sub.R2) of the substrate; and separating the substrate after introducing the defects by applying a stress along the separation line.

A laser processing system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes: a laser unit emitting a laser beam; an optical unit disposed on a propagation path of the laser beam and modulating the incident laser beam into a Bessel beam; a stage on which a workpiece to be processed with the Bessel beam emitted from the optical unit is mounted; and a control unit for controlling the operations of the laser unit, the optical unit, and the stage, wherein the optical unit is configured to position the focus line of the emitted Bessel beam on the workpiece and to move the focus line positioned on the workpiece with a predetermined range.

A method for monitoring a laser welding process for welding two workpieces using a laser wavelength, in which a pulsed laser beam is directed into the workpieces so as to melt a melting volume in a region of an interface of the two workpieces in order to produce a weld seam, and in which an intensity of a process radiation emitted by the melting volume is detected. According to the method for monitoring the lase welding process, in a first step, a detected intensity profile is evaluated with regard to at least one of the following features: (i) a depth of an intensity decrease, (ii) a duration of an intensity decrease, and (iii) a renewed increase in intensity after an intensity decrease. In a second step it is determined whether or not a gap between the two workpieces was bridged during the laser welding process based on the evaluation.

A method for hardening a transparent material includes the steps of introducing a material modification to the transparent material using a laser beam of ultrashort laser pulses of an ultrashort pulse laser so as to harden at least a portion of the transparent material.