Micromachining with femtosecond lasers

Summary form only given. Two industrial applications of ultrashort-pulse machining process will be presented in this contribution. For the automotive industry, the production of high-aspect-ratio high-quality microholes for injection nozzles is required. We demonstrate a strong dependence of the quality of these holes on the polarization of the laser beam (linear, circular, etc.). The origin of this dependence will be discussed, and special techniques that allow us to improve and optimize the quality of the produced holes will be presented. The advantages of applying diffractive optical elements (DOE) for the beam forming ultrashort laser pulses allow the machining of well-defined structures and high-aspect-ratio holes under atmospheric pressure. The production of metallic and organic stents for the medical industry will be presented as a second industrial application for this novel machining technique.