Ultra-short pulse laser beam shaping for microstructuring using a deformable mirror

Using ultra-short laser pulses to treat material with low thermal influences is a rapidly growing technology. Structuring using Gaussian beams generates grooves and influences the geometry of the generated pattern. For special applications e.g. in solar industries a top-hat intensity profile is being used to generate isolation grooves, which leads to higher scanning speed. These profiles are generated by using diffractive optical elements (DOE) and exists only in the focal plane for which the optical element was designed for. A higher flexibility for beam shaping can be achieved by using spatial light modulators (SLM), but its transmission efficiency is lower than a DOE and due to diffraction there is an additional loss of intensity.To generate one single beam shaped laser pulse with low loss of intensity, a deformable mirror can be integrated. These mirrors are built by combining a piezo-ceramic to a mirror substrate. By pattering the piezo-ceramic into independent controllable segments the mirror surfac...