High speed industrial processing using high power IR femtosecond lasers

Femtosecond lasers has the ability to cleanly cut a wide variety of materials with minimal effect to the surrounding material. Also, the availability of high-power industrial femtosecond lasers made it possible to achieve high throughputs, which is critical for high volume manufacturing. In this work, we investigate the benefits of using high-power IR femtosecond lasers in processing: separator foil and anode/cathode material used in Li-ion battery manufacturing, polycrystalline diamond (PCD), polypropylene (PP), high density polyethylene (HDPE) and silicon carbide (SiC). Our studies demonstrate that using a high-power IR femtosecond laser for processing these materials results in high throughputs with acceptable HAZ (heat-affected zone) meeting the demands of the industry.