August 7, 2006, Ann Arbor, MI--At this year's InterOpto Conference, held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba-city, Japan, attendees had the opportunity to learn about a new cooperative agreement between Cyber Laser and IMRA America that provides users of femtosecond micromachining processes freedom of use of patented processes developed by the University of Michigan, in all areas except human health and cosmetics.
In a presentation at the Cyber Laser and Laser Focus World co-sponsored event, "3rd Annual Advanced Laser Seminar", held on July 13, 2006, Takashi Omitsu, President of IMRA America, described one specific aspect of IMRA's comprehensive program to provide customers with solutions in precision material processing. By IMRA extending rights to the patent family, including U.S. patent #5,656,186, "Method for controlling configuration of laser induced breakdown and ablation", to Cyber Laser through their purchase of IMRA's ultrafast fiber lasers, Cyber Laser's customers can obtain rights to use their material processing methods without any concern for infringement of the basic patent governing use of ultrafast lasers for material processing.
The University of Michigan patent discloses a method for producing micron-level features in a variety of materials without inducing thermal damage to surrounding material. The method utilizes ultrashort laser pulses such as the ones produced by IMRA's family of ultrafast fiber lasers, which includes the FemtoliteTM Ultra seeder used by Cyber Laser, along with IMRA's FCPA μJewel series of high-repetition rate, microJoule-pulsed amplified systems suitable for precision material processing inside transparent materials and on surfaces.