In recent years, with the continuous improvement of industrial technology demand, the requirements for processing tools have become higher and higher. The development direction of micro precision laser cutting tools is also approaching the market demand and developing towards the ultra fast laser field. The market demand for developing picosecond laser cutting machines and femtosecond laser cutting machines, dominated by nanosecond laser cutting, has gradually formed.
Nanosecond, picosecond and femtosecond are time units, 1s = 103 milliseconds = 106 microseconds = 109 nanoseconds = 1012 picoseconds = 1015 femtoseconds, picosecond laser cutting machine and nanosecond laser cutting machine refer to the action time of a single pulse of laser in the picosecond and nanosecond time range, and refer to the pulse width of laser. The laser processing method is to irradiate the material surface with a high-energy laser beam after focusing, so that it can undergo physical or chemical reactions to form cutting. In essence, it is a thermal processing method. However, due to its short action time, which is usually in the range of several nanoseconds, the heat affected area is small, which can ensure the processing effect and processing speed.
In today's mainstream market, our common laser processing tool is a nanosecond laser. With the improvement of industrial technology, the thermal effect within the range of nanosecond laser is amplified, and the derivative adverse effects brought by the thermal effect are not accepted by the market. A new laser processing tool came into being, which meets the market demand and is also a technological breakthrough in the laser industry, In the industry, we call it micro precision ultra fast laser processing system, which is usually called picosecond laser cutting machine or femtosecond laser cutting machine.
Picosecond laser cutting machine has ultra short pulse time, and the action time of a single pulse is only a few picoseconds, so its thermal impact is very small, even negligible. Compared with the processing of nanosecond laser cutting machine, there is no recasting material in the whole processing process, and the processing process is clean. The absorption of laser energy is less dependent on materials or wavelengths. Therefore, in the field of micro precision laser processing, the picosecond laser cutting machine and femtosecond laser cutting machine of ultra fast laser processing system provide a broad space to play, and their processing characteristics are destined to play an important role in the future.
Compared with nanosecond laser, picosecond laser cutting machine not only has better processing effect and processing speed, but also has wider space in the market application field, such as solar cell laser etching (narrower line width), OLED laser cutting (smaller edge collapse), brittle material laser drilling (faster speed), and so on. It can do things that cannot be done in the nanosecond time range, mainly due to the influence of the heat affected zone, From the figure below, we can intuitively see the difference between ultrafast picosecond laser and nanosecond laser. In the figure, we find that the heat affected area of the material and the influence of the heat effect in the nanosecond range, while the ultra fast picosecond laser cutting machine has almost negligible heat effect, so the processing effect is more ideal. At the same time, the action time is short, the accuracy is higher, and the processing speed is faster.
It is precisely because of the characteristics of low heat, cold ablation and high precision of the ultra fast picosecond laser cutting machine that it has extraordinary performance in stainless steel, aluminum, titanium alloy, sapphire, ceramics, glass and other materials. It is widely used in scientific research, biological instruments, solar photovoltaic, electronic product manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturing and other fields. It has an absolute favorite status.
Of course, at present, the mainstream laser processing market in the market is still dominated by nanosecond lasers. The reason is that the cost of picosecond ultra fast laser cutting machines is high. The future trend must be towards picosecond and femtosecond fields