A new system that uses ultra short laser pulses to manufacture medical products or sensors for the automotive market has been announced as the result of a project named New Micro Ablation Technology. The project was run by the Cross Border Cluster Stimulation (GCS) which contained project partners Agora, Lunovu, and Cewac from The Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium respectively.
The team behind the new system has said that through the use of cold ablation technology, higher levels of precision than normal can be achieved.
As the ultra short pulses last a few picoseconds there is very little time for laser energy to be transferred as heat; however the laser can ablate small amounts of material with each pulse. This reduces damage to the part and allows for precise processing of holes, cuts, or recesses within a material.
The project partners also said that based on this new technology, experts expect a huge number of new applications to come up during the next few years. Precondition to this, however, is the availability of production-style USP laser machine systems that are suited to transfer the novel laser processes from the laboratory into industrial production. Consequently, the completion and commissioning of the USP laser machine as a part of this research project is a very important step towards an industrial exploitation of this promising technology.
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