Laser materials processing is of great interest for industrial applications as well as for scientific investigations. Main advantages of the laser as a manufacturing tool are the high speed at which a laser beam can be moved and, contrary to mechanical tools, laser light is not subject to wear and tear. Besides the wavelength, the pulse duration of the laser source is the main parameter influencing the nature of the laser-material coupling. Pulse durations of down to a few femtoseconds are available from state of the art laser systems. The high peak intensities provided by ultrashort pulses initiate multiphoton absorption mechanisms, bridging a band gap much larger than the photon energy. Thus, by applying ultrashort pulses the ablation of nearly any material is possible by multiphoton absorption.

 Gear 3C-SiC

The non-thermal nature of ultrashort pulsed ablation together with the ultrafast mechanism offers well-defined ablation threshold fluences and enables laser structuring with high precision.

 3D Structure in glass substrate