Microcutting and Hollow 3D Microstructures in Glasses by In-volume Selective Laser-induced Etching (ISLE)

Abstract

3D microfluidic devices and assembled micro mechanics inside fused silica glass are produced directly from digital CAD data e.g. for markets like medical diagnostics. To exploit the potential productivity of new high average power fs-lasers (150 W -1 kW) a modular high speed scanning system has been developed. Acousto-optical beam deflection, galvo-scanners and translation stages are controlled by CAM software. Using a lens with 10 mm focal length a focus radius of 1 m is scanned with a velocity of 12 m/s on 400 m track radius enabling the up-scaling of the ISLEprocess using large repetition rate and large average power.