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Because of the very specific character of the laser matter interactions in femtosecond mode, the applications ultra short pulses are also very specific:
- all types of materials can be machined, from the most fragile (paper, plastics,…) to the hardest (diamond, ceramics,…).
- machining is done with a very limited contamination of the environment: few burs, little rejection of particles, little thermal effects on the material.
Two great families of applications can be identified: on the one hand metallic materials and transparent materials. In this last case, it is possible to carry out modifications of index of transparent material on the surface or in the bulk (it is thus possible to produce wave guides).
For these two families, rather similar results can be obtained in precision and quality, but the characteristics of the laser pulses can be very different and the conditions of use of the beam can also have a crucial importance.
It is important to underline this point because a too fast analysis could make believe that it is sufficient to have an ultra fast pulses source to carry out micro/nano fabrications with fs processing.
A finer analysis will show that it is wrong and that it is very important not to neglect the step of process development, field of excellence of the company IMPULSION.
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