Methods of fabricating glass substrates with reduced birefringence

A method of fabricating one or glass-based articles, the method comprising:

• rolling a glass-based material to form a glass-based sheet;
• heat treating the glass-based sheet by increasing a temperature of the glass-based sheet, holding the temperature at a maximum temperature for a hold period, and then decreasing the temperature at a cooling rate, wherein after the heat treating, the glass-based sheet has a retardance over thickness of 5 nm/mm peak-to-valley or less at all locations outside of and including 10 mm from any edge of the glass-based sheet;
• removing a first quality area of the glass-based sheet, wherein the first quality area extends at least 10 mm from a first edge of the glass-based sheet and along a length of the glass-based sheet, and the length of the glass-based sheet is a direction of the rolling of the glass-based material;
• removing a second quality area of the glass-based sheet, wherein the second quality area extends at least 10 mm from a second edge of the glass-based sheet and along the length of the glass-based sheet;
• and
• separating the one or more glass-based articles from the glass-based sheet.