SBIR-STTR Award

Laser ablation represents an established and effective strategy for controlled material removal in both industrial and medical applications. A variety of conventional laser devices, such as ND:YAG based and excimer based systems are employed in this activity now. These systems are costly. The objective of this project is to determine the feasibility of reliable ablation protocols utilizing low cost surface emitting distributed feedback (SEDFB) laser diode devices. SEDFB diodes are currently in limited production at Hughes Danbury Optical Systems (HDOS) under contract with Phillips Laboratory (PL). Our plan is for Laser Fare to procure under contract with HDOS several packaged high powered SEDFB devices. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) will model the laser/materials interaction at the 941 line. Laser Fare will perform empirical testing on a variety of candidate materials to determine the effectiveness of diode ablation techniques on each. The best candidates for future work will be derived from this matrix.

Keywords:
Laser Ablation, Surface Emitting Distributed Feedback Diodes

Significant market opportunities exist for new low cost laser technologies in many areas of materials processing, particularly in "micromachining" applications in the fabrication of medical and semiconductor devices and integrated circuit packages, and rapid prototyping, where lasers are currently used to generate net shape prototypes through a variety of processes. High power surface emitting diode lasers offer the potential for compact, reasonably priced, efficient, and high brightness laser sources, ideal candidates for these applications. The primary goal of this work is the development and commercialization of high power surface emitting diode laser technologies into commercial production. A parallel effort will focus on the development of OEM diode laser modules which are suited to the broadest possible spectrum of end user applications.

Keywords:
Rapid Prototyping Micro-Machining High Brightness Diode Lasers