High average power femtosecond laser source for micromachining

Abstract

Femtosecond pulses have demonstrated their ability to drill, cut or mark almost any kind of material with high precision and reduced heat affected zone. Experiments have been performed with pulse energy ranging from tens of millijoules to a few microjoules. We emphasize that for most applications, a few hundreds microjoules is enough and that increasing the processing speed will induce increasing the laser repetition rate. Within the MULIC project (Micromachining with Short Laser Pulses), we developed a high average power diode-pumped green laser (>100 W) with high beam quality (M2∼10) at 10-30 kHz that will be used for pumping femtosecond laser system.Femtosecond pulses have demonstrated their ability to drill, cut or mark almost any kind of material with high precision and reduced heat affected zone. Experiments have been performed with pulse energy ranging from tens of millijoules to a few microjoules. We emphasize that for most applications, a few hundreds microjoules is enough and that increasing the processing speed will induce increasing the laser repetition rate. Within the MULIC project (Micromachining with Short Laser Pulses), we developed a high average power diode-pumped green laser (>100 W) with high beam quality (M2∼10) at 10-30 kHz that will be used for pumping femtosecond laser system.