Additive manufacturing (AM) of brittle materials remains challenging, as they are prone to cracking due to the steep thermal gradients present during melting and cooling after laser exposition. Silicon is an ideal brittle material for study since most of the physical properties of single-element materials can be found in the literature and high-purity silicon powders are readily available. Direct laser melting (DLM) of silicon powder was performed to establish the conditions under which cracks occur and to understand how the solidification front impacts the final microstructure. Through careful control of process conditions, paying special attention to thermal gradients and the growth velocity, epitaxial pillars free of cracks could be grown to a length of several millimeters.
Keywords: additive manufacturing; direct laser melting; epitaxial growth; silicon.