Single-crystal sapphire is utilized as a high-performance engineering material, especially in extreme and harsh environments. However, due to its extreme hardness and brittleness, the machinability of sapphire is still a challenge. By means of nanoindentation and plunge-cut experiments, the anisotropic brittle-ductile transition of the prismatic M-plane and rhombohedral R-plane is examined by analyzing crack morphologies and the critical depth-of-cut (CDC). The experimental results of the nanoindentation tests are correlated to the plunge-cut experiment. Both the prism plane and the rhombohedral crystal plane exhibit a two-fold symmetry of ductility with various crack patterns along the machined grooves. The direction-dependent plasticity of the hexagonal sapphire crystal is mainly connected to a twinning process accompanied by slip dislocation.

In this study, plunge-cut tests are conducted on single-crystal sapphire to investigate the brittle and ductile deformation mechanisms from the viewpoint of crystal anisotropy. The anisotropic deformation behaviour of the machined sapphire substrate manifests itself in the critical depth of cut and the diverse crack morphologies. Based on a resolved stress model that is adapted to the experimental procedure, weighted resolved stresses are computed, and the tendency of brittle–ductile transition depending on the peculiarities of the low-symmetry hexagonal crystal structure is discussed. Rhombohedral twinning is assumed to dominate the brittle–ductile transition.

Sapphire has received increasing attention as an engineering material even though its machinability is still an issue. In this study, the influence of the milling process parameters on the surface quality of single-crystal sapphire is investigated. Due to the hardness and brittleness of the sapphire substrate, crack initiation becomes the main concern with respect to up- and down-milling, feed rate, tool inclination angle and tool wear. With an inclined ball-end mill cutter in feed direction various cutting tests were performed to find optimal parameters for machining microchannel. It was observed that the feed rate and depth of cut are dominant factors for the surface quality. The tool inclination angle shows a parabolic relation to the quality of the machined surface. After tool wear events, such as peeling-off of the tool coating, an increased surface roughness is observed.