NakuLaser Blog

2019 Current Status and Application Prospects of Super Ultrashort Lasers Ultra-short and ultra-strong lasers can be divided into nanoseconds, picoseconds, and femtosecond lasers according to the length of the pulse. Nanosecond lasers , such as the NIF laser in the United States, the LMJ in France and the Shenguang IV in China, are the most expensive, and the energy is in the order of megajoules. Mainly used in radiation fluid mechanics, laser fusion center ignition related physics and laboratory astrophysics, such lasers are expensive to manufacture. It can only be built in some national laboratories. Picosecond lasers , for example, have been built in Japan with LFEX, as well as lasers with parameters close to the power of the tile, China’s Shenguang II upgrade, British Vulcan, and US OMEGA-EP. The cost is relatively expensive. Its energy is in the order of kilojoules, and its power reaches the level of wattage. It is mainly used for fast ignition, physics in large-scale n...

Femtosecond lasers are capable of processing any solid material with high quality and high precision using their ultrafast and ultra-intense characteristics. With the continuous development of laser technology, ultrafast laser manufacturing could become one of the primary methods employed in high-end manufacturing in the future. Recently, researchers have realized a new method of electron dynamics control for ultrafast laser micro/nano fabrication. For the first time, the localized transient electron dynamics can be actively controlled to manipulate material properties, which greatly enhances the efficiency, quality, uniformity and precision of laser fabrication. This research was conducted by the group of Professor Lan Jiang from Beijing Institute of Technology, in cooperation with Professor Tian-Hong Cui from the University of Minnesota, and Professor Yongfeng Lu from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Their research results were recently reviewed in Light: Science and Appli...

Filamentation cutting is a relatively new process that uses ultrashort-pulse (USP) lasers to cut a wide range of glass substrates, from soft borosilicates to chemically hardened glass used in smartphone displays. Among the advantages of filamentation cutting are the ability to produce curved shapes and cut-outs, cutting speeds up to 2000 mm/s, and superior stress-free edge quality, which eliminates the need for post-processing. The high peak intensity created by a focused USP laser produces self-focusing of the beam because of the nonlinear optical Kerr effect, further increasing power density until, at a certain threshold, a low density plasma is created in the material. This plasma lowers the material refractive index in the center of the beam path and causes the beam to defocus. If the beam focusing optics are properly configured, this focusing/defocusing effect can be balanced to periodically repeat and form a stable filament, which extends over several millimeters in depth throu...