Ultrafast Lasers & Advanced Motion Control Systems Improve Performance In Material Processing

Laser material processing continuously advances the state-of-the-art in fields spanning from medical technology (e.g., laser drilling holes in tablets to provide controlled release of drug delivery) to semiconductor manufacturing (e.g., laser annealing for reduced feature sizes).  Progress stems from advances in the performance of the laser as well as the motion control and automation system directing the beam and/or moving the parts to be processed quickly and precisely to the exact location at the exact time.  Speed and timing are crucial for the laser, the positioning system, and the exact synchronization of multi-axis motion with the firing sequence of the laser.

Readers can probably instantly recall videos on order of magnitudes panning down from celestial bodies to sub-cellular microscopic levels. At the finer end of these scales, where microns and nanometers matter, PI is a world-leader. Each day in technical discussions around the globe, the words micron and nanometer are spoken thousands of times with innovative companies and world-leading research institutions.  The focus at PI isn’t just on ultraprecise, it’s also on ultrafast and equally important are terms like picosecond, femtosecond, and attosecond.

Producing components with functional structures and geometries at micron and submicron scales absent of collateral damage is guiding the next generation of laser processes; ultrafast lasers manufacturers and machine builders play a key role here. Ultrafast lasers have wide-ranging application potential in ablative (direct material removal) and non-ablative processes across a spectrum of brittle, flexible, organic, alloy, and composite materials.