Ultrafast laser pulses remove material by ablation, rather than by melting. The ability to deliver high power without thermal damage is one factor driving growth, which makes high-rate laser processing well suited for biological, biomedical, and medical device manufacturing applications. But other factors driving growth include the increasing need for cost-effective, industrial micromachining and the ability to process larger substrates. Our cover story this month discusses some recent innovations in the design of ultrafast lasers. By combining high-average power lasers with high-speed scanning systems, fast and accurate processing of large areas makes possible bioinspired surface functionalization and microtextured riblet formations for drag reduction on aluminum airfoils (see article).
Next, we highlight the work engineers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM as they describe how, using an ion exchange process, optical waveguides can be created in cost-effective display glass, creating structures supporting data transport and further photonic system integration (see article). Furthering our coverage of photonic integrated circuits, we explain how silicon photonics enables cost-efficient, small-form-factor coherent modulators by leveraging established large-scale silicon wafer processes for high yield and reliability, while achieving the integration levels required for next-generation datacenter interconnect demands (see article).
Then, researchers at the University of Tübingen in Germany describe the development of a homemade vibration isolation system using steel springs suspending an optical table from a common-height ceiling spheres mounted underneath the table and immersed in a highly viscous silicone oil, that efficiently damps resonances and vibrations are in all translational and rotational degrees of freedom, especially in the frequency range between 1–10 Hz (see article). Finally, we offer insight into how optical-grade liquid silicone elastomers resistant to heat, humidity, and UV exposure can be molded into complex shapes for LED lighting applications (see article), and discuss the clinical implications of new work on the use of visible resonance Raman for tumor ID and grading (see article). As always, I hope you enjoy this issue.
John Lewis | Editor in Chief (2018-2021)
John Lewis served as Editor in Chief of Laser Focus World from August 2018 through October 2021, after having served as the Editor in Chief of Vision Systems Design from 2016 to 2018. He has technical, industry, and journalistic qualifications, with more than 13 years of progressive content development experience working at Cognex Corporation. Prior to Cognex where his articles on machine vision were published in dozens of trade journals, he was a technical editor for Design News, covering automation, machine vision, and other engineering topics, for over six years.