Post on 12-Jan-2016
transcript
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
The Path Less Travelled
Non-mainstream laser applications
ICALEO 2014
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Laser Processing is a multi-billion dollar market:
ILS estimates 2014 industrial market at 2.5 billion1
Most of this comes from well-established applications:
Metal cuttingMarkingDrillingWelding
1 Industrial Laser Solutions vol. 26 no. 1, pp 6-9
What’s “non-mainstream”?
But then there’s the other stuff
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Well, how are you going to kill rats in a cornfield with lasers?
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
How big a laser do you need?Range?Power?Duration?Steering?Safety?
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
For months I was afraid they were going to send me samples
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
But now people are picking on something smaller
© Intellectual Ventures
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
There’s real money behind this
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is exploring ways to eradicate malaria
Eliminating mosquitoes from inhabited areas is an effective control method
Intellectual Ventures, run by Nathan Myhrvold, is working on ways to do this using scientists who worked on SDI
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
How would you kill mosquitoes with a laser?
TrackingSet up a “fence” with LED’s, a retroreflector and a cameraProcess the silhouette to determine if it’s a mosquito
SizeSpeedWingbeat frequency
KillingWavelength
Should be eye-safe (1.5 μm range)Beam size
As small as possible over the target area (1mm?)Energy
Need about 50 mJ in 5 ms (tests by Intellectual Ventures)
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
So they came up with this
© Intellectual Ventures
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Which sort of works
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Working with food
MarkingBar codesLogos
ModifyingTrimmingThinningAltering
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Drilling grains of rice
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Why would you want to do this?
Reduces cooking time by allowing water to reach the kernel
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
But you don’t want to drill rice grains one at a time
CO2 laser
150 μm spot
30 μs pulse
10 mJ
3 kHz
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Works well, never implemented
100 μm depth
1 mm spacing
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Cosmic Debris
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Cosmic Debris
These canperforate spacecraft
These candamage spacecraft
There’s lots of stuff orbiting the Earth
800 active satellites
29,000 objects larger than 10 cm
60,000 objects larger than 5 cm
700,000 objects larger than 1 cm
200,000,000 objects larger than 1 mm
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
I know what we can do;
let’s blow them out of the sky with lasers!
Where do you get big enough lasers to do that?
You don’t; you just use lasers big enough to push them around
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
www.clean-space.eu
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
But you still need a pretty big ground-based laser
Laser Requirements from Clean Space
Laser Wavelength : between 1 and 1.1 μmPulse width : 10 nsEnergy : 10 to 50 kJ/pulseRepetition rate : > 10 HzBeam quality : M2~3Beam pointing stability : 70 nradTelescope Diameter : 4 to 6 mTransmission : 80% Total tracking accuracy : 100 nradStrehl ratio : 0.8
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
In San Diego, the frost is not on the pumpkin yet
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
This process is labor-intensive and dangerous due to the use of big sharp knives
Almost all Jack-o’-lanterns are manually generated
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
We have studied ways of automating this process
CO2 laser
400 watts
400 μm spot
10 mm Rayleigh range
4 mm/sec
Cycle time 217 sec.
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Edge quality and cut straightness is good
Wall thickness ~40 mm
Consulting in Laser Material Processing
Happy Halloween
Leonard Migliore