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High throughput diffractive multi-beam femtosecond laser processing using a spatial light modulator

When achieving an ablation regime for micromachining, researchers had previously attenuated the laser beam, by a factor of up to 1,000. This paper reports work on the innovative concept of splitting the incoming main beam into many independently controlled sub-beams, each one of which would be capable of reaching ablation conditions and so performing micro-machining. By using a spatial light modulator the paper shows that over 30 such sub-beams can be simultaneously produced and controlled offering a massive potential increase in the efficiency of the process. This technology has been adopted to increase throughput of laser micromachining and surface processing.