Product Code: ICAL09_M209

MOPA Pulsed Fiber Laser with Controlled Peak Power and Pulse Energy for Micromachining of Hard Materials
Authors:
Sami Hendow, Multiwave Photonics; - USA
João Sousa, Multiwave Photonics; Maia Portugal
Paulo Guerreiro, Multiwave Photonics; Maia Portugal
Niels Schilling, Fraunhofer Institute IWS Dresden; Dresden Germany
Jan Rabe, Fraunhofer Institute IWS Dresden; Dresden Germany
Presented at ICALEO 2009

Control of pulse parameters, such as pulse energy, peak power and pulse length, is important for optimizing the lasers parameter, as well as identifying the processing window of many hard materials. Examples of such materials are thin film coatings on glass substrates, silicon PV cells, metals and ceramics. A MOPA fiber laser configuration is described for generating controlled pulses that are 10nm to 250ns long, and with pulse repetition frequency ranging from single-shot to 750kHz, while maintaining high beam quality of M2<1.2 at all times. Test results are shown of the fiber laser producing pulses of constant peak powers or constant pulse energy as other parameters are changed, such as pulse width, repetition frequency, or average power. Such a change in pulse parameters directly impacts the scribe speed and quality, the heat affected zone, and the kerf width and depth. Test results are shown for processed materials using controlled pulse energies up to 0.5mJ, peak powers up to 10kW, and average power up to 10w.