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Excimer Laser Applications
The staff at LightMachinery has been involved with excimer lasers since the beginning of time
LightMachinery Excimer Lasers are designed for a wide variety of advanced applications in precision manufacturing and R&D including;
- Wire stripping
- Drilling
- Changing the index of optical materials to 'write' Fiber-Bragg gratings or holograms
- Micro-machining of polymer and ceramic materials for electronic and medical devices
- Marking
- Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and chemical vapour deposition (CVD)
- LIDAR
Excimer lasers enable clean non-contact stripping of a wide variety of wire and insulation types. The excimer laser is a standard industrial tool wherever mechanically fragile wires are used. The excimer beam removes insulation without any charring and creates a very clean metal surface.
Typical of excimer laser stripping of fine gauge wires for hard disk drives. Very clean insulation removal, no loose particles and no damage to the core conductor. This is a gold/copper 47 gage wire, 50 microns in diameter with 8 microns of polyurethane insulation. Heavier Gage wire stripping. 14 gage wire, 2mm in diameter, insulation 12 microns thick. Wire has been stripped only from one side a common requirement that is easily accomplished with the excimer laser. Wire stripping of multiple wires, 50um wire diameter, Polyimide insulation Stripping a single 50um wire with polyimide insulation
Drilling
The drilling of small holes is one of the most common applications of the excimer laser. Ultra-violet light can be focussed to very small spots, the very small holes in ink jet nozzles are almost exclusively drilled the excimer laser. The clean walls created in the this fast 'cold' process have no melting or charring.An excellent example of the quality and precision achieved by the excimer laser drilling plastic. This is 75 micron thick polyimide with 50 micron diameter holes.
The ability of the excimer laser to alter the index of doped glasses became an important industrial process in the 1990's when it became the standard process for creating Fiber Bragg Gratings. This continues to be a very common use for the excimer laser and now new variations are also gaining industrial strength including the cration of micro holographic optical elements.Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs ) are narrowband reflection filters written permanently into the core of single mode fibers. Wavelength-selective fibers for telecommunications (DWDM) and smart sensors. Normally done with a KrF or ArF excimer laser operating with unstable resonator optics. Unstable resonator optics available on GSI Lumonics excimer lasers provide low beam divergence and excellent focused spot quality. This is a very important parameter when the laser is used in advanced aThe spot profile shown here is formed by a one meter focusing lens. Learn more... Example of microlens array, 90x50µm lenslets in PC by Optec OG technique.
The excimer laser is a powerful industrial tool for the micro-machining of non-metals. Masks of various shapes are often put in the beam and demagnified onto the component. The shape of the mask may be a rectangle or a round shape. Then X-Y tables can be used under CNC control to develop intricate shapes and contours.Very precise stripping from gold contact pads using an IPEX laser with a highly specialized Offner projection lens to pattern around a dozen devices in one go, with step & repeat for rows of devices. Edges are precise to <1.5µm, and note lack of debris using Coax He nozzle. Test pattern machined with IPEX in Polyimide, bar width is 20µm, credit Olaf Krüger, FBH, Berlin 8µm width and 8µm pitch grooves in polycarbonate Catheter slit is a 20 µm wide groove machined though a conductive coating along the length of a 1.8m catheter. There were 4 grooves milled simultaneously and rigorously at 90° by splitting the IPEX beam in 4 Fibre location grooves machined in PMMA using a PM848 at 193nm. Credit to Kris Naessens of INTEC for the photo ZnSe lens array, pitch 6µm, using MAS300 workstation with an IPEX series eximcer laser. Credit to P Gailly, Centre Spatial de Liège, Belgium. Spiral slots in a Polyimide tube(prototype polymer stent) around 0.8mm dia. Example of microlens array, 90x50µm lenslets in PC by Optec OG technique.
The UV energy from the excimer laser can produce dramatic color changes in plastics and ceramic materials. These marks are permanent and can be used for simple identification or traceability or anti-conterfeit. Sample testing at LightMachinery is free so do not hesitate to contact us to evaluate your marking application.Ceramic chip capacitor marking, very small character sizes, high throughput, good contrast on most ceramics. Excimer marking is normally integrated into an automated test handler. Aerospace wire marking for Tefzel and Teflon wire. The excimer laser marks are high contrast permanent marks that cannot be removed with solvents. No reduction in insulation strength. Applications include marking on contact lenses, flat panel displays. Mark shown here is typical of 2D matrix codes used on flat panel displays and other high value glass substrates. Glass marks are achieved using the excimer laser at 193nm. Dot size is 100 microns
Pulsed Laser Deposition
The excimer laser can be used as a means of vaporizing target material inside a vacuum chamber and depositing it on a substrate. The process has several advantages over conventional processes including;
- A wide variety of targets can be used; metals, ceramics and oxydes
- Independant control on the deposition temperature and the background pressure (oxygen, helium, nitrogen...).
- the resulting thin film has the same stochiometry as the target
- novel coatings such as diamond films can be produced
The PulseMaster laser in a PLD application at the INRS Canada. The PulseMaster 880 is clearly visible in this PLD laboratory setup in Italy at the CNR IMM - Istituto per la Microelettronica e i Microsistemi - Bologna The plume as material deposits on the substrate with high energy creating dense coatings
The powerful ultra-violet beam of the excimer is providing important insights into the workings of our atmosphere.Excimer based LIDAR in Canada's Far North, this system studies ozone in the stratosphere using 308nm UV light
Ready to ship LightMachinery
Ultra-reliable lasers and responsive customer servicePulseMaster-800 Series
The PulseMaster excimer lasers are designed for medium industrial or R&D applications requiring high power or high energy operation at any of the 193, 248, 308, 351 nm excimer laser wavelengths.- moreIPEX-800 Series
Designed for high duty cycle operation in a manufacturing environment, IPEX Series lasers deliver high power ultraviolet laser machining combined with state-of-the-art performance. - moreContact us
For more information, free sample processing, or to answer any questions about these products, call us at (613) 592-6232, fill out our simple contact form below or email us at webinquiry@lightmachinery.com
