Wafer producing method

A wafer producing method for producing a hexagonal single crystal wafer from a hexagonal single crystal ingot having a first surface, a second surface opposite to the first surface, a c-axis extending from the first surface to the second surface, and a c-plane perpendicular to the c-axis, the wafer producing method comprising:

• a separation start point forming step of setting a focal point of a laser beam having a transmission wavelength to the hexagonal single crystal ingot inside the hexagonal single crystal ingot at a predetermined depth from the first surface, which predetermined depth corresponds to a thickness of the wafer to be produced, and next applying the laser beam through the first surface as relatively moving the focal point and the hexagonal single crystal ingot to thereby form a modified layer parallel to the first surface and cracks extending from the modified layer along the c-plane, thus forming a separation start point;
• and
• a wafer separating step of separating a plate-shaped member having a thickness corresponding to the thickness of the wafer from the hexagonal single crystal ingot at the separation start point after performing the separation start point forming step, thus producing the wafer from the ingot;
• the separation start point forming step further including:
• a modified layer forming sub-step of relatively moving the focal point of the laser beam in a first direction perpendicular to a second direction where the c-axis is inclined by an off angle with respect to a normal to the first surface and the off angle is formed between the first surface and the c-plane, thereby linearly forming the modified layer extending in the first direction, and
• an indexing sub-step of relatively moving the focal point in the second direction to thereby index the focal point by a predetermined amount;
• wherein the separation start point forming step includes a first separation start point forming sub-step of forming the separation start point with a first power and a second separation start point forming sub-step of setting the focal point at the modified layer previously formed in the first separation start point forming sub-step and then applying the laser beam to the hexagonal single crystal ingot with a second power higher than the first power at an increased repetition frequency in a condition where the energy per pulse of the laser beam is the same as that in the first separation start point forming sub-step, thereby separating the cracks from the modified layer.