Product Code: ICA13_M405

Laser Micromachining of Bio-Absorbable Polymers: Impact of the Laser Process Parameters on the Machining Throughput and quality
Authors:
Victor Matylitsky, High Q Laser GmbH; Rankweil Austria
Frank Hendricks, High Q Laser Gmbh; Rankweil Austria
Rajesh Patel, Spectra Physics; Sanat Clara CA USA
Presented at ICALEO 2013

High average power, high repetition rate femtosecond lasers with µJ pulse energies are increasingly used for material processing applications. With the introduction of femtosecond laser systems such as the SpiritTM platform developed by High Q Lasers and Spectra-Physics, micro-processing of solid targets with femtosecond laser pulses have obtained new perspectives for industrial applications.
The use of bio-absorbable polymers for production of bio-degradable stents has led to increasing attention to micromachining of bio-absorbable polymer. The choice of laser for production of stents depends on the type of material and cutting details. Because of the low melting temperature (usually below 100 C°) of bio-absorbable polymers any heat load to the surrounding areas during laser processing should be minimized. Therefore, using ultrafast laser pulses for micromachining of bio-absorbable polymers is highly promising due to the non-thermal nature of laser-material coupling on the one side (so-called “cold ablation”) and the possibility of structuring in the micron scale on the other side. In this work the influence of the processing conditions on the efficiency and quality of laser processing of bio-absorbable poly-L-lactic acid polymer has been studied. Particularly the influence of pulse duration on the ablation process was investigated.