Micro-machining using 1.55μm band fiber pulse laser with 10kW peak power

It is reported on micro-machining using as a laser source, a high peak power fiber pulse laser, MITSUBISHI CABLE'S LP155R that consists of a two stage erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) designed specialty for pulse amplification. The output of the fiber laser is a transversal single mode and its wavelength is 1.55 μm. The peak power and the pulse width of FWHM in our catalogued products are 10 kW and 2 ns respectively. A laser source having preliminary specification of 2 kW and 80 ps is also used. The high peak power and short pulse created in these systems make precise micro-machining possible with little thermal damages around the processed regions. It is demonstrated that microdrilling and microscribing of metals and crystals such as tungsten, diamond-like-carbon (DLC) coating, stainless steel 304, silicon, sapphire and lithium-niobate. The microstructures of the processed specimens observed by a scanning electron microscope and an optical microscope are also introduced in this paper.© (2004) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.