Thanks to the support of the HiLASE Centre, a completely new micromachining centre could be established in the Institute of Scientific Instruments of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Brno. This device is able to process practically all metals and various types of ceramics and glass, with micrometre precision. The HiLASE Centre has constructed and delivered a tailor made solution for the institute: a compact Perla 100 laser – a thin-disk laser system with ultrashort pulses lasting a thousandth of a billionth of a second. Such hard-to-imagine short pulses cause the material to evaporate instantly, without being exposed to heat, thus it causes cold aberration. The evaporated area has the dimensions of tens of micrometres.
The technology has a wide range of applications, whether it is the creation of various microstructures, optical gratings, removal of surface layers or testing of new types of entire optical systems. In addition, the development of the micromachining system itself is moving forward, and some optical elements that do not yet exist in the commercial sphere may be created. For more details please see the press release of the Institute of Scientific Instruments (in Czech only).
