Monthly Archives: September 2013

Welding Characteristics of Foturan Glass Using Ultrashort Laser Pulses

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By Isamu Miyamoto, Yasuhiro Okamoto, Kristian Cvecek, Michael Schmidt, Henry Helvajian

While glass is widely used in different industrial field due to its excellent physical and chemical properties, there exist no reliable joining procedures of glass at the moment. We have developed a novel fusion welding procedure of glass that can weld glass even with high coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) using ultrashort laser pulse (USLP).

Recently, ultrashort laser pulse (USLP) has brought a new wave of laser welding that enables crack-free welding of dielectric material like glass without pre- and post-heating. The advantages of USLP welding of glass are provided by embedded molten pool due to the unique laser absorption mechanism of nonlinear process. It has been shown that the stress due to the thermal shrinkage of the weld bead can be in principle prevented in USLP welding of glass where molten pool is embedded in bulk glass. The embedded molten pool also provides advantage of local melting selectively only at the joint interface. Continue reading →

Local Laser Joining of Glass and Silicon

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By Assi Hansen, Isamu Miyamoto, Tiina Amberla, Yasuhiro Okamoto

One of the most employed material combinations in microtechnology is the glass-silicon pair. Since the huge growth of the microelectromechanical devices, sensors and micro-fluidic devices, bonding of this couple has become more and more critical issue. Many of these glass-silicon bonding processes, for example anodic bonding, fusion bonding and eutectic bonding, have reached their limits in terms of flexibility. In addition, high temperature and electrical field applied in the process can limit the application. Compared to conventional methods, local laser joining technique can provide many advantages, such as localized and flexible joining, non-contact manufacturing, high precision and repeatability, easiness and minimization of heat effects. The technique is based on the principle of transmission welding, where glass is transparent to the wavelength used and hence the laser beam passes through the glass wafer and is absorbed to silicon. As a result, silicon is melted and upon resolidification bonding is realized between the two substrates. Continue reading →

A Technical and Commercial Comparison of Fiber Laser and CO2 Laser Cutting

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By John Powell, Alexander Kaplan

Since the advent of commercial fiber and disk laser cutting machines, there has been a lot of controversy about the performance of these devices – particularly in comparison to their more established CO2 counterparts. In the early days, the sales staff promoting fiber technology would often declare that the new lasers would completely take over from CO2 technology very quickly – but this has not happened. Even taking into account the entrenched position of the older technology, fiber and disk lasers have not been as widely accepted as was predicted, although they have been proven to out-perform CO2 lasers in certain important areas.

This paper presents a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of both types of cutting technology from a commercial point of view – written from the perspective of a laser cutting job shop owner trying to decide between buying a fiber or CO2 laser cutting machine. A quantitative comparison of the two machines is surprisingly difficult – having given several talks on the subject the best analogy we can give is that it’s like comparing a sports car with a family car. Continue reading →

NAMII, CIMP-3D Tours Kick off LIA Industry Watch Feature

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The entrance area of NAMII in Youngstown, Ohio.

When President Barack Obama took a moment in his State of the Union address earlier this year to mention the converted warehouse in Youngstown, Ohio, that is home to the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, he made Kevin Collier’s life a little more hectic.

But Collier, factory manager of NAMII, doesn’t seem to mind. During a special tour for the Laser Institute of America that lasted more than an hour on Aug. 23, he proudly displayed the broad range of machines and materials he and his interns employ to push the boundaries of laser-based AM.

Youngstown is one key stop along the “tech belt” of Route 80 that Dr. Richard Martukanitz discussed at the fifth-annual Laser Additive Manufacturing Workshop in Houston on Feb. 13, the day after the president’s nod to NAMII. Martukanitz, co-director of CIMP-3D at Penn State, and his fellow researchers have also felt the influx of curious visitors at the one-year-old facility. (NAMII also just celebrated its first anniversary.) He and Drs. Kenneth Meinert Jr. and Tim Simpson also spent more than an hour with me during a tour of their growing facility Aug 26.

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Protect Your Growth and Profits!

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The New Standard for Manufacturing Can Help Ensure that Your Customers and Employees Stay Safe

ORLANDO, FL, September 5, 2013 – Media reports these days are filled with stories of a coming revolution in manufacturing, particularly through additive processes. With lasers prevalent in the output of high-value components in many industries, the Laser Institute of America unveils its latest safety standard exclusively for those applications.

The ANSI Z136.9 Safe Use of Lasers in Manufacturing Environments standard is the latest in the line of laser safety guidelines stemming from the parent ANSI Z136.1 standard. LIA plans to have it available for purchase to coincide with the third annual Lasers for Manufacturing Event® (LME®) Sept. 11-12 in Schaumburg, IL.

This standard provides reasonable and adequate guidance for the safe use of lasers and laser systems that operate at wavelengths between 180 nm and 1 mm. Intended to protect individuals with the potential for laser exposure when lasers are used in manufacturing environments, this standard includes policies and procedures to ensure laser safety in these areas where lasers are used in manufacturing, both public and private industries, and product development and testing settings.

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