Significant results of double-pulse ablation research

The latest Femtoshape project status meeting yielded interesting experimental results, presented by the BFH and Fluence Technology teams. Research by the BFH team on double-pulse (fs + ps) ablation provided new evidence of the strong impact of the additional picosecond pulse on the efficiency and quality of laser processing. The most important achievement is demonstrating that the use of appropriately shaped pulses allows for a three-fold increase in ablation depth in Borofloat glass (from 100 µm to 300 µm) while simultaneously significantly smoothing the processed surface.

In parallel, in the Fluence Technology laboratories, the possibility of achieving the project’s target energies for narrowband picosecond pulses (>20 µJ) in fiber amplifiers designed by Fluence Technology was successfully proven, as well as the capability to tune their pulse duration 100-fold. Purchasing of the necessary optoelectronic and fiber-optic components, which will enable parallel amplification and propagation of pico- and femtosecond pulses, is currently underway. These results bring us closer to finalizing the laser prototype, which will be sent to Switzerland later this year for final industrial testing.