Fabrication and bonding of single crystal silicon

By: Roger A. Paquin, Douglas R. McCarter and Eloise McCarter

McCarter Machine, A Division of MZA Associates Corporation
1312 Underwood Rd, La Porte, TX, 77571

ABSTRACT

Single Crystal Silicon (SCSi) is a versatile material and is seeing increased use for mirrors and telescopes. In the past, small boule size and the brittle nature of the material have restricted its applications, but that is no longer the case. After much development and testing, we can now fabricate SCSi with near zero surface damage/residual stress and utilize the in-house developed bonding methods to fabricate much larger substrates than available SCSi boules. More importantly, these bonding techniques enable us to bond-in threaded metal inserts for attachments, thereby eliminating the risk of putting threads directly into SCSi components.

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