Kittichai's Plan for this quarter Paper

Application of using diffractive optical elements for beam-shaping of laser micromachining

The paper I am planning to write this quarter is related to my M.S. dissertation that I am working on and plan to finish it by June 2007 in order to graduate from the Welding Engineering Program at OSU. The research topic I am working on is related to laser micromachining technique using diffractive optical elements on polymer samples.

This project can be thought as a combining of two technologies together. First, laser micromachining has been used to fabricate channels for micro-devices, biomedical components, or electronic components by craving channels out of material surface to create desired patterns. Either the sample itself or the laser beam must be controlled by computer programming based on the desired paths and patterns. More interests have been emphasized on using femtosecond or ultrafast pulse laser for this application to minimize the damage due to heat developed in the material. With addition of the diffractive optical elements which shape a circular beam into a desired shape such as a square, triangle, doughnut, fonts, or other complicated shapes, the machining can be performed much quicker without having to move laser beam or the samples. The diffractive optical elements apply the diffraction of light principle to create a 2D or 3D image out of a single laser beam as both destructive and constructive diffraction patterns are created similar to what we learned in general physics class when a light pass through a single slit or double slit.

In the paper, I plan to discuss both femtosecond laser micromachining and application of diffractive optical elements for laser beam shaping. Other possibilities include comparison of other beam shaping techniques by other researchers for beam shaping and laser micromachining application. The emphasis should be placed on the quality, feasibility, and economic considerations of each technique.