<title>Femtosecond laser materials processing</title>

Abstract

Femtosecond lasers enable materials processing of most any material with extremely high precision and negligible shock or thermal loading to the surrounding area. Applications ranging from drilling teeth to cutting explosives to making high-aspect ratio cuts in metals with no heat-affected zone are made possible by this technology. For material removal at reasonable rates, we developed a fully computer-controlled 15-Watt average power, 100-fs laser machining system.