Laser manufacturing techniques are physical effects between high energy and materials, such as gasification, ablation, modification, etc., finally realizing processing effects. Laser processing has quickly entered into all fields and industries. At present, it is still based on metallic processing, accounting for more than 80% of the entire laser processing industry. Due to hardness of iron, copper, aluminum, and corresponding alloys, the effect is better, and laser processing is easily applied. For some ordinary metal laser cutting, welding applications, it may only be aware of the corresponding optical power, and requirements for processing are not very strict.
But in fact, a large amount of non-metallic materials, such as soft, thermoplastic materials, thermosensitive, ceramic, semiconductor, glass materials and other brittle and fragile materials, which strictly require for beam properties, ablation degree, and material damage control, and often require ultra-fine processing, even micro-level.
Under this condition, ultraviolet laser is a very suitable choice.
Multiple usage of UV laser technology
UV laser refer to the output of the light beam located in ultraviolet spectroscopy. It can not be seen by naked eye. Currently in industrial, UV laser with solid crystal and UV laser with gas are common seen. Three times frequency on the infrared full solid laser can obtain UV laser beam output, with a total wavelength of 355 nm. And the current pulse width has been successfully developed from nanosecond to the picosecond level. The gas UV laser is common as excimer laser, mainly used in ophthalmology, chip photolithography etc. In recent years, the fiber laser has gradually been developed UV range of products, among which picosecond-grade UV fiber laser is most representative.
Since the energy of UV laser is lost during the conversion, the cost is still high, and there is still a difficulty in make it a higher power. UV lasers are often considered as a cold light source, so UV laser processing is also referred as cold processing, which is very suitable for processing brittle materials.
UV lasers for common brittle materials
Glass is a common material in life. From the water cup, wine glasses, containers to glass jewelry, pattern processing in glass is often a problem, and traditional processing methods often cause high damages, but UV laser processing are very suitable for processing glass and ultra-fine processing can be achieved. UV laser marking makes up for inadequate processing accuracy, difficulty in drawing, damaged workpiece, pollutions to environment and other unique advantages. It has become a new favorite for processing glass products.
In addition, UV laser can also be used in large quantities of ceramics, such as construction, utensils, ornaments etc.
