By Cnr Ifn
Ultrafast lasers are the frontier of micromachining of a huge variety of materials including metals, semiconductors, ceramics, glasses, polymers, crystals and composites. The intrinsic capability of tightly focused ultrashort laser pulses to modify a material with micro/nanometric precision and reduced collateral damage have disclosed new possibilities for milling, drilling, engraving, welding, cutting, surface structuring, waveguide writing, 3D printing, synthesis of novel nanocomposites. To meet the demand of the manufacturing industry for faster processing speeds, a new generation of high power femtosecond and picosecond laser sources has been developed providing GHz repetition rates, multi-Kilowatt average powers and mJ pulse energies at different wavelengths. At the same time, faster beam steering and novel beam shaping technologies are available to exploit the full potential of such laser sources. Our mission is to push this technology a step forward and promote its industrial use in many application fields from automotive to aerospace, medicine and diagnostics.
