Investigation of the effect of electrophoretic-assisted cooling conditions in diamond wire sawing of silicon carbide wafers

Abstract

Slicing silicon carbide (SiC) wafers in diamond wire sawing (DWS) presents significant challenges due to the material’s hardness and brittleness. Implementing a chemical-mechanical sawing strategy can enhance the machinability of the SiC sawing process. This study investigates the effect of different cooling strategies on diamond wire wear and the surface quality of as-sawn wafers. Experiments were conducted under constant parameters using three distinct cooling conditions: traditional DWS (T-MDWS), reactive abrasive coolant DWS (R-MDWS), and electrophoretic-assisted reactive coolant (ER-MDWS). Diamond wire wear and surface roughness were examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and coherent correlation interferometry. The results indicate that the ER-MDWS cooling condition significantly improves machinability, reducing diamond wire wear by 35.92% and surface roughness by 4.68% compared to the T-MDWS. The enhancement is attributed to electrophoretically assisted Fe₃O₄ particle deposition and the formation of a chemically softened surface layer, which decreases impact loading and facilitates a transition toward ductile-dominant material removal. These findings confirm that integrating electrophoretic-assisted chemical reactions into DWS effectively enhances machinability and provides a sustainable pathway for high-quality SiC wafer manufacturing.