Advalue Photonics, based in Tucson, Arizona, USA, has expanded its applications lab for laser material processing.
The company has employed two experienced PhD material scientists who will focus on processing samples and developing processes for industrial material machining applications.
The laboratory is equipped with four laser workstations including the latest Advalue Photonics industrial fibre lasers, as well as metrology equipment for evaluation of processing results. ‘Growing the capabilities of our applications lab with experienced staff and state-of-the art equipment will enable us to qualify our industrial lasers for a large variety of applications in the industrial material processing market,’ said the president and CEO, Dr Shibin Jiang.
One of the lasers in the applications lab is the Advalue Photonics Everest Nano Green, which is a frequency doubled fibre laser producing a wavelength of 515nm, a pulse duration of 5ns with 100µJ pulse energy at 300kHz and an M2 of less than 1.2. These laser characteristics make the laser an ideal choice for drilling small through holes in glass materials at high speed. For example, 1mm diameter holes in 3.2mm thick glass can be drilled in less than one second.
Another laser installed in the applications lab is the Everest Pico 1µm, which is an all-fibre-based picosecond laser with a pulse energy up to 50µJ at 500kHz, 50ps pulse duration and an M2 of less than 1.3. This laser can cut hard materials like sapphire and PCD diamond. Using short pulsed lasers and proper processes, sapphire can be cut at a high speed with superior cut quality and yield that cannot be matched by conventional methods.
Other lasers such as Advalue Photonics’ pulsed fibre lasers with wavelengths in the 1.5µm and 2.0µm regions further add to the applications lab’s capabilities, as they can process materials with special absorption characteristics like transparent polymers or thin film materials in solar cells and other devices. Nanosecond pulses in these wavelengths are available for application tests and process feasibility studies.