Laser processing for micro and nano-scale manufacturing: technology and application advances

Centre Director, Professor Duncan Hand is presenting at AILU's Conference Laser Processing for Micro and Nano-scale Manufacturing: Technology and Application Advances in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Birmingham University. Professor Hand will be giving and invited talk on New opportunities for nano and micro laser processes. Alongside him is Bill O'Neill from the Centre presenting on Laser modification of carbon nanotube based wire for enhanced electrical properties and industrial speakers such as Phil Rumsby, M-Solv and Nadeem Rizvi, Laser Micromachining. This is an annual event, which is being held for the first time at the University of Birmingham and is co-organised by the EcoLaserFact project (www.ecolaserfact.eu ). It will bring together a wide range of industrial users, suppliers of laser-based equipment and researchers in laser technology and applications, to network and to review the latest innovations in micro and nano-scale laser processing and the opportunities that it is creating.

The UK has a strong background in micro-machining, both on an academic and laser source/system integration level, and interest in applications of laser micro processing continues to grow in the UK. For example, at the last Industrial Laser Applications Symposium (ILAS 2013), a full six out of the 16 technical sessions were devoted to micro and nano-scale processing and their applications! AILU’s Micro & Nano Special Interest Group was set up to represents the interests of this section of the Laser Materials Processing community, and the annual laser micro and nano-processing workshop is its main activity.
Whether driven by the quest for higher efficiency or from the desire for greater functionality from the same thermal and/or physical footprint of device; the solution is almost invariably to shrink the feature sizes. Pulsed laser-processing - in particular using short and ultra-short pulse lasers - is increasingly becoming the tool of choice; a technology that provides an increasingly cost-effective route to achieving the necessary micro and nano-features, from profiled cooling holes to large area textured surfaces. Staying abreast of the developments in this enabling technology is key to maintaining a competitive edge.

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