Ultrafast lasers as a versatile processing tool

Ultrafast lasers are a class of laser that produce pulse widths of picoseconds (10(-12) sec) and femtoseconds (10(-15) sec). They can achieve extremely high peak power with. low pulse energies. The most important characteristics of ultrafast laser-matter interaction are precise ablation threshold and absence of heat diffusion into the material during laser irradiation, both due to the shortness of the laser pulse One of the advantages of applying ultrafast lasers in materials processing is the versatility of these lasers in processes where material removal is required As the laser pulse width decreases from milliseconds through microseconds to nanoseconds and picoseconds, the material removal mechanism transitions from melt expulsion to direct ablative removal. This process is similar in many different solid materials, regardless of the material composition. In this paper st number of ultrafast laser machining examples in a variety of materials will be presented to illustrate this point. Precise ablation threshold and little or no heat-affected zone combine to yield high quality drilling and cutting in these cases.