joint pro­ject information

Ultrashort and highly precise –
the new dimension of laser materials processing

Ultras­hort laser pul­ses with a dura­tion of a several fem­to­se­conds (1 fs = 10⁻¹⁵ s) up to a few pico­se­conds (1 ps = 10⁻¹² s) allow for com­ple­tely new machi­ning approa­ches impos­si­ble by app­ly­ing con­ven­tio­nal tools. In the field of medi­cine abso­lutely new the­rapy oppor­tu­nities can be estab­lished, for example highly pre­cise cuts with mini­mal damage inside the human eye. A signi­fi­cant fea­ture of these laser pul­ses are the extre­mely high peak inten­si­ties, which can be achie­ved even with very low pulse ener­gies due to the high tem­po­ral con­fi­ne­ment. This enab­les a very pre­cise mate­rial abla­tion as well as the pro­ces­sing of ther­mally sen­si­tive mate­ri­als wit­hout any ther­mal damage. In pho­to­vol­taics this high-pre­cision pro­ces­sing leads to more effi­ci­ent solar cells, and the yield per wafer increa­ses for the fabri­ca­tion of LEDs or com­pu­ter chips. Much more effi­ci­ent and inex­pen­sive tre­at­ments are pos­si­ble in cataract the­rapy, one of the most fre­quent sur­ge­ries per­for­med world­wide. Novel ways to treat pres­by­opia using ultras­hort laser pul­ses seriously com­pete with the well-estab­lished rea­ding glas­ses. The chal­lenge now is to use the lea­ding posi­tion of Ger­man com­pa­nies to take the necessary next steps to explore the full poten­tial of ultras­hort laser pul­ses. This inclu­des the deve­lop­ment of inno­va­tive, inex­pen­sive and power­ful laser con­cepts, long term sta­ble opti­cal com­pon­ents as well as highly dyna­mic beam con­trol and sha­ping. The part­ners of the rese­arch alli­ance „Ultra¬short pul­ses lasers for high pre­cision pro­ces­sing” meet this chal­lenge. They are sup­por­ted with appro­xi­mately 20 Mio. Euro by the Federal Minis­try of Edu­ca­tion and Rese­arch (BMBF) wit­hin nine joint rese­arch pro­jects.