Microwave assisted cutter breaking has a strong application prospect, in order to deeply analyse the auxiliary effect of microwave irradiation on cutter breaking, the TBM scale cutter breaking test after microwave irradiation was carried out. Firstly, the rock was irradiated by microwave using different parameters, and the influence law of different microwave parameters on the surface temperature of the rock was studied. After the rock is back to room temperature, the damaged rock was taken as the basis to carry out the TBM scale cutter rotary rock breaking experiment, to study the influence of microwave irradiation time and power on the cutter thrust, cutter torque, rock ballast weight, cutter wear and the specific energy of rock breaking. The results show that: with the increase of microwave irradiation time and irradiation power, the rock surface temperature increases, the rock heating rate increases, the highest temperature of the rock surface is 172.6 ℃. The cutter thrust is fluctuating in the breaking rock, the rock below the cutter is crushed to powder, the cutter side produces block ballast. With the increase of microwave irradiation time and microwave power, the cutter thrust decreases, the disc torque decreases, the weight of the rock ballast increases, the amount of cutter abrasion decreases, and the specific energy of rock breaking decreases. The best microwave irradiation time should be more than 40 s and the microwave power should be more than 7 kW for the test of Chifeng basalt, which provides a certain experimental basis for the microwave-assisted cutter rock-breaking.