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.