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Mar/Apr 2012  

Lasers

Top Features

New method for structuring brittle materials

Hard and brittle materials, like certain types of glass and sapphire, are difficult to process—even for lasers. Poor absorption at most wavelengths combined with poor heat-transfer properties make it difficult or impossible to realize structures in these materials.

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Hybrid machining can be a real time-saver

Hybrid machining combines two or more manufacturing technologies. The aim of hybridization is to overcome the inherent limitations of a specific technology or expand its capabilities, raise productivity, and decrease processing time and costs.

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Self-assembling structures via laser forming

Laser forming has provided unique solutions for a variety of manufacturing-related challenges. Among the examples are correcting out-of-plane deviations in metal plate and removing weld-induced distortions.

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Cleaning up after laser processing

The cleanliness of laser-processed parts is of paramount importance, especially when producing medical, semiconductor and aerospace components.

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German researchers find potential security in laser chaos

June 22, 2011—By making a laser behave chaotically, scientists at the Institute of Physics at the University of Würzburg, Germany, may apply the technology to optical amplifiers and switches, and could enable a new, secure form of data transmission, according to a university news release.

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Laser drilling really small holes

Laser-drilled holes with diameters less than 100µm usually are considered “small.” However, lasers can produce holes down to fractions of a micron across.

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Top Videos

Micromanufacturing lab tour at Northwestern Univ.

During the 7th International Conference on MicroManufacturing in March, conference co-chairs Jian Cao and Kornel Ehmann, along with a few of their students, provided an overview of their research and work stations at the university's micromanufacturing lab.

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Racecar sets world speed record

Small Car at Vienna thumbA 285µm-long racecar has been fabricated in record time via ultrahigh-precision 3-D printing at Vienna University of Technology.

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Laser cutting, bending microscale foil chair

Check out this cool video of thermal laser forming performed at the Penn State University’s Applied Research Laboratory.

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LaserStar demos welding repair for mold

LaserStarOct. 31, 2011—LaserStar Technologies, Riverside, R.I., recently demonstrated a microweld using the company's 7700 Series laser system with Universal Jig, which is said to be ideal for a wide range of unique and custom integration applications for metal joining, complex assembly and repair.

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Researchers create microdroplet 3-D laser system

Dec. 13, 2010—Slovenia researchers recently demonstrated full 3-D tunable lasing in laser dye-doped cholesteric liquid-crystal (CLC) microdroplets from 15µm to 50µm in diameter—a first, according to an article in the Dec. 10 issue of Optics Express, an international online journal of The Optical Society.

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Top Products

Potomac Photonics adds precision laser

Potomac Photonics

Potomac Photonics, Lanham, Md., purchased an SPI fiber laser, which will be integrated into a system that is optimized for small hole drilling and high precision cutting.

The company can achieve feature sizes as small as 5µm in a variety of materials, such as metals, ceramics and silicon wafers for the medical, biotech, electronics, alternative energy and automotive industries.

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Laser welding machines

LaserStar Technologies Corp.

LaserStar 7500 FiberStarLaserStar Technologies Inc. offers a complete line of laser welding systems—from benchtop models to manual units to multipurpose workstations that integrate with other lasing technologies.

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Mori Seiki line targets micromachining

DMG/Mori Seiki USA

5-axis milling thumbDMG/Mori Seiki's Advanced Technologies line consists of machine tools for micro- nano- and laser-machining and special-purpose applications.

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Micromachining, fabrication book available

InTech

InTech micro book thumb"Micromachining Techniques for Fabrication of Micro and Nano Structures," a new book presenting advances in micromanufacturing technology, is available as a free download through InTech, an open access publisher of scholoarly papers and books.

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Ultrafast amplifier

Newport Corp.

amplifier thumbSpirit is a compact, industrial-grade, ultrafast amplifier with adjustable repetition rates up to 1MHz. Introduced in January and part of Newport Corp.’s Spectra-Physics brand, the Spirit laser reportedly offers the high-repetition rates needed for micromachining of medical devices, nanostructuring, pump-probe experiments and certain time-resolved science applications.

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