Excimer lasers - a novel tool for material fine and microprocessing of glasses

Abstract

Over the last 15 years, the laser has evolved to become a key technology because of quality, flexibility and cost effectiveness that it can provide. There is scarcely another technology which is more suited for material fme and microprocessing. Industrial laser applications include cutting, drilling, welding, soldering, marking, trimming, coating, alloying, annealing, hardening, lithography, etc. Each year thousands of laser Systems for material processing are installed worldwide. Also into glass industry the laser has found access. Standard laser applications in this field are: cutting quartz tubes; scribing quartz tubes and plates; scribing (drinking) glasses with subsequent thermal blast-off of the upper part; sealing glass casings containing electronic circuits (transponders); marking quartz glasses, bulbs and flasks, dyed or coated drinking glasses, cups, etc.; marking, cutting and drilling diamonds. Despite these examples the number of actual laser applicaüons in the glass industry is limited, and behind each of these applications there are only a few producing Systems. The manufacturers of lasers for material processing do not even accomplish 1 % of their turnover with the glass industry Reasons for the minor role of the laser in this industry can be found in the features of CO₂ and N d : YAG lasers, which are the lasers mainly applied up to now.