Quartz glass, a high-purity, colorless, transparent substance, exhibits distinctive physical and chemical properties, and is employed in a multitude of fields, including optics, electronics, semiconductors, chemical industry, and others. The processing of quartz glass is the procedure of treating quartz glass materials through cutting, grinding, thermal process and other processes in order to achieve a specific size, shape and accuracy. This article will give you a detailed introduction to the quartz glass processing technology and its corresponding applications.

 Quartz glass processing techniques

1. Cutting

The cutting of quartz glass mainly adopts high-purity water cutting technology to obtain the required size of glass by laser or water jet cutting. This cutting method not only ensures the flatness and precision of the incision, but also avoids micro-cracks and scratches caused by mechanical cutting.

2. Grinding

Grinding is a very critical step in the processing of quartz glass, mainly used to remove sharp edges of the cut as well as unevenness of the surface. Two common methods of grinding quartz glass are mechanical grinding and chemical grinding. Mechanical grinding mainly relies on abrasives to cut and grind the surface of quartz glass; while chemical grinding is the use of chemical solutions and abrasive particles under the action of mechanical force, to achieve the microscopic smoothness of the surface of quartz glass.

3. Thermal process

In the processing of quartz glass, thermal process is commonly used to change the properties and shape of the material. In general, the thermal process of quartz glass includes annealing, silicification and high temperature sintering. Through the application of these processes, the hardness, thermal shock resistance and corrosion resistance of quartz glass can be improved to enhance the product quality and service life.

Quartz glass processing applications

1. Optical field

Excellent light transmission and low dispersion of quartz glass make it an ideal material for the preparation of high-precision optical devices in the optical field. After precision cutting and grinding, quartz glass can be employed in the fabrication of optical lenses, prisms, windows and other optical components, which are widely used in telescopes, lasers, optical fibre communications and other fields.

2. Electronic field

Quartz glass has excellent insulation properties and high temperature stability, so it has a wide range of applications in the field of electronics. Through the processing of quartz glass, high-precision electronic devices can be fabricated, such as quartz crystal oscillators, quartz crystal resonators, etc.. These devices play a vital role in wireless communications, computers, electronic measurement and other fields.

3. Semiconductor field

In the field of semiconductors, quartz glass is employed primarily for the fabrication of tubes and substrates used in semiconductor growth furnaces. The quartz glass processes ensure the uniformity and high purity of the tubes, which in turn maintains temperature stability and low impurities  of semiconductors during its growth, thereby improving the quality and output of crystals.