By: Shinobu Tamaoki
Sumitomo Electric Inc.
Pulse fiber lasers (PFL) have become widely popular for micro-machining applications due to their many benefits, such as the high beam quality, compactness, high wall-plug efficiency, and reliability. MOPA (Master Oscillator Power Amplifier) architectures, which provide temporal pulse shape control, are particularly interesting.
By: T. J. Kwee, G. X. Chen, N. R. Lei, K. P. Tan, Y. S. Choo, M. H. Hong
Centre of Innovation (Marine & Offshore Technology)
Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore
Ships play a significant role in our life by carrying about 90% of the world’s intercontinental cargo. But the service condition of ships in the seawater is severely corrosive. It often costs billions of dollars on maintenance, repair, and corrosion-related down time of ships. Ships require the best possible paint protection to extend their operating life and to save money.
By: Kun Li, William O’Neill, Jack Gabzdyl
Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge
SPI Lasers
The micro-machining of silicon components for use in the MEMS fabrication and microelectronics industry is well-established, and the demand for semiconductors started to recover after the 2008 downturn. Laser micro-drilled interconnect via holes is an application that has been applied in high volume manufacturing since 1995. In 2006, the laser held 70% of the microvia market because of its broad processing capabilities with a wide range of materials. Meanwhile the photovoltaic (PV) industry has experienced enormous growth over last few years, and it forecasts to grow to $100 billion between 2008 and 2013 (Lux Research, NY). As the most important material, c-Silicon has 77% of market share of world production of solar cells NanoMarket web (2009). Additionally, many novel high efficiency solar cell concepts (Emitter Wrap Through & Metal Wrap Through) are only feasible with laser technology, since it satisfies the requirement of drilling a few thousand holes (50-100µm in diameter) per second in c-Si.
By: T. J. Kwee, G. X. Chen, N. R. Lei, K. P. Tan, Y. S. Choo, M. H. Hong
Centre of Innovation (Marine & Offshore Technology)
Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore
Marine and offshore industry often treats with complicated and huge underwater constructions, such as deepwater drilling facilities, undersea oil pipelines, and submersed towers of offshore platforms. These kind of underwater structures often need on-site building, maintenance and repair works. The quality of underwater work is affected by surface contaminants such as oil, rust, fouling material, biofilm and deteriorated paint. Most of the conventional cleaning techniques are limited by the critical conditions of the underwater environment. Especially, there is not an effective cleaning method for removing underwater oil contaminants. It is important to develop a promising cleaning method for underwater works.
