UV (ultraviolet) ps (picosecond)-laser with high peak power for micromachining

Further progress in micro-technology depends on the ability to create features of micron and sub-micron dimension. Photo-lithography, ablation, photo-polymerization are the processes, which are hard to imagine without an use of lasers. For micromachining of transparent and other material two diverse techniques are applied: deep-UV nanosecond and infrared ultrafast (femtosecond) pulse lasers. Excimer lasers are good sources of UV light, but require mask projection for processing. Usage of hazardous gases and a short maintenance period are their disadvantages. Ablation with femtosecond (fs) pulses takes place almost without thermal influence, but fs-lasers with a chirped pulse amplification system are complicated equipment for industrial applications. That is the reason, why their usage is limited to scientific laboratories.