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2007
Conference Paper
Titel
Potentials of fiber laser technology in microfabrication
Abstract
Over the recent years the novel fiber laser technology and its potentials have been exciting laser manufacturers as well as researchers and industrial users. Fiber lasers with their excellent beam quality promised noticeable advantages and improvements in high precision and micro material processing. Besides the excellent beam quality there are more advantages of the fiber laser technology such as compact installation size, high laser efficiency, moderate system price and easy to be integrated. The paper presents the results of extensive comparative tests of short pulse fiber laser systems and a common q-switch rod solid state laser with nearly identical system parameters. The intention was to determine the specific advantages in practical application work. Where are the advantage and how large are the improvements? Therefore typical applications of laser micro machining have been chosen - drilling, cutting and lateral material removal as well as marking. By choosing different materials like aluminum, silicon and ruby a broad field has been examined. Distinct improvements have been proven in several applications especially regarding precision and surface quality of the created structures. Under almost identical conditions the fiber laser achieved more narrow cutting kerfs and smaller hole diameters compared to the rod laser system.