Dual Process Strategy to Increase the Usable Power for Laser-Milling

Nowadays it is a big challenge to exploit the available average power of ultrashort-pulsed laser systems for the production of high quality structures in metals. A dual process strategy of alternating GHz bursts and conventional processing helps to avoid adverse effects that occur at higher average power. The combination of polishing and ablation leads to higher ablation rates. This new strategy also meets higher quality requirements in terms of surface and edge quality. Due to the spatially and temporally limited re-melting with ultrashort pulses, no strong melt formation occurs during polishing. Consequently, this approach enables a high increase of the ablation rate without lowering the precision of ultrashort pulse milling.