TRUMPF develops high-power, ultrafast laser systems

TRUMPF has announced the addition of a recently established research project called ScULPT to develop an efficient and powerful ultrafast laser system that can increase the yield of micromachining different types of glass and metal tenfold
.

The team hopes to develop a laser system that can utilize ultrafast pulses for high-precision material processing, which will significantly improve production efficiency, greatly reduce the processing cost per part, and make the new application economically viable
.

To achieve this breakthrough, the output power
of industrial-grade ultrafast pulsed lasers needs to be significantly enhanced.
With peak power of a few megawatts and extremely short pulse durations (about one trillionth of a second), ultrafast lasers are used for high-precision machining
of most materials.

These light sources are now used not only in a variety of research areas, but also in industrial applications (e.
g.
drilling and texturing of metal parts for the automotive industry) or ablative cutting of transparent materials (e.
g.
high-strength coverslips for optical displays
).

The joint research project is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for a period of three years through the German Photonic Research Grant Program
.
Project management was provided
by VDI Technologiezentrum GmbH.