Method of working silicon nitride ceramics.

摘要

A method of working silicon nitride ceramics is adapted to enable accurate cutting and smoothing of a surface of a silicon nitride ceramics workpiece and to improve the working speed without exerting a bad influence on the material of the silicon nitride ceramics workpiece itself. A surface of a silicon nitride ceramics workpiece (5) is irradiated with light (2) having a wavelength which is in the range of 190 nm and not more than 360 nm, and worked. Proper working can be performed by defining the energy density of continuous light in the range of at least 10<5> W/cm<2> and not more than 10<1><0> W/cm<2>, or defining the energy density per pulse of a pulsed laser beam in the range of at least 10 J/cm<2> and not more than 10<3> J/cm<2>. The laser beam (2) is converged by cylindrical lenses (3, 4) or cylindrical mirrors. It is possible to widen the range of application of silicon nitride ceramics to the field of structural members, which have generally been hard to work with requirement for high costs.