The invention relates to a method to produce a metal blank with a predetermined contour, with the following steps: continuously moving the metal strip in a transport direction x; concurrently removing material from the surface of a top of a metal strip in at least one predetermined surface section by ablation by means of a first laser that is a component of a first removal device, and then concurrently cutting the metal strip along a cutting path corresponding to the contour of the metal blank by means of at least one second laser that is a component of a cutting device provided downstream of the first removal device; the surface section of an upstream metal blank being produced simultaneously with the cutting of a downstream metal blank.

There is provided an additive manufacturing device including a control device of controlling a relative posture of a heat retaining light beam irradiation device to a melting light beam irradiation device, in a state where a heat retaining light irradiation range of a heat retaining light beam larger than a melting light irradiation range of a melting light beam is overlapped with the melting light irradiation range, and such that a size of the heat retaining light irradiation range is changeable with respect to a size of the melting light irradiation range.

A mask manufacturing equipment includes a first stage on which a mask frame is disposed, the mask frame including cell openings arranged in a first direction and a second direction intersecting the first direction, a transfer module that places cell masks on the mask frame to respectively overlap the cell openings of the mask frame and the cell masks, a camera module that photographs the cell masks, a first processing module that irradiates a first laser beam between a border portion corresponding to a portion of the mask frame adjacent to an N-th cell opening and a first edge area of an N-th cell mask disposed on the border portion, and a second processing module that irradiates a second laser beam to a boundary area between the first edge area and a second edge area extending from the first edge area.

A method of forming a build in a powder bed includes providing a first diode laser fiber array and a second diode laser fiber array, emitting a plurality of laser beams from selected fibers of the second diode laser fiber array onto the powder bed, corresponding to a pattern of a layer of the build, simultaneously melting powder in the powder bed corresponding to the pattern of the layer of the build, scanning a first diode laser fiber array along an outer boundary of the powder bed and emitting a plurality of laser beams from selected fibers of the first diode laser fiber array and simultaneously melting powder in the powder bed corresponding to the outer boundary of the layer of the build to contour the layer of the build. An apparatus for forming a build in a powder bed including a first diode laser fiber array and a second diode laser fiber array is also disclosed. The first diode laser fiber array configured to contour the layer of the build.

A processing apparatus has: a light irradiation apparatus configured to irradiate a coat formed on a base member with a processing light; and a controlling apparatus configured to control the light irradiation apparatus. The processing apparatus is configured to change a thickness of at least a part of the coat by irradiating the coat with the processing light so that the base member is not exposed from the coat.

Disclosed is a film cutting apparatus for cutting a film fabric having a multilayer structure with a plurality of film layers and including a release film layer positioned at an outermost layer of one side of the film layers, the film cutting apparatus including a laser unit including a laser head configured to form a first cutting line on a predetermined first film group by cutting the first film group by selectively irradiating the first film group with a laser beam to include some film layers except for the release film layer among the film layers, and a cutting unit including a cutter configured to form a single cutting line by connecting a second cutting line and the first cutting line on a predetermined second film group by cutting the second film group using a cutting blade to include some film layers including at least the release film layer among the film layers.

The invention relates to a control method for controlling a multi-beam apparatus having one or more beam sources for producing a plurality of beams of a system for manufacturing a three-dimensional workpiece by means of an additive layer construction method, in which method a material that can be solidified in order to manufacture the three-dimensional workpiece is applied in layers to a surface of a carrier and the material that can be solidified is solidified by the plurality of beams in a respective layer at points of incidence of the plurality of beams on the material that can be solidified, wherein the points of incidence of the beams for solidifying selective regions of the layers of the material that can be solidified in order to manufacture the three-dimensional workpiece are each controlled substantially against a gas flow direction of a gas flow over the surface of the carrier; wherein the control method comprises (a) dividing the material to be solidified in the respective layer into at least two sections, wherein two of the at least two sections extend in the gas flow direction of the gas flow prevailing over the two of the at least two sections in succession at least in part, (b) dividing at least one of the two of the at least two sections into at least two surface pieces, (c) assigning each of the surface pieces to exactly one specific beam, which solidifies the material to be solidified in the assigned surface piece, (d) controlling the points of incidence of the beams such that, at at least one point in time during an exposure of the material to be solidified, the material to be solidified is solidified in at least two surface pieces, and a network consisting of straight lines extending between each center point of the points of incidence to every other center point of the points of incidence, at no point in time during the exposure, in which all center points of the points of incidence are located outside of a predetermined distance from each other, has a straight line parallel to the gas flow direction of the gas flow prevailing over the two of the at least two sections.

There are provided a laser irradiation apparatus, a laser irradiation method, and a semiconductor device manufacturing method that reduce irradiation unevenness of a laser beam.

A laser irradiation apparatus includes a waveform shaping device (20). The waveform shaping device (20) includes a laser beam source (11), a first waveform shaping unit (30) that shapes the pulse waveform of a pulse laser beam by applying a delay according to an optical path length difference between two light beams (L11 and L12) branched by a first beam splitter (31), a wave plate that changes the polarization state of the pulse laser beam from the first waveform shaping unit (30), and a second waveform shaping unit (40) that shapes the pulse waveform of the pulse laser beam by applying a delay according to an optical path length difference between two light beams (L15 and L16) branched by a second beam splitter (41).

A module for an additive manufacturing apparatus including more than one optical train, each optical train providing a route for a laser beam to pass through the module and including steering optics for steering the laser beam towards the material to be consolidated as part of a layer-by-layer additive manufacturing process. The module is configured to deliver laser beams from the more than one optical trains through a single window in a build chamber of the additive manufacturing apparatus.

Disclosed herein are systems and methods for using microlens arrays for parallel micropatterning of features. A method includes emitting a laser beam providing the laser beam to a lenslet array including a plurality of lenslets, and generating, from the laser beam, a plurality of laser sub-beams using the lenslet array. Each one of the plurality of laser sub-beams is generated by a corresponding one of the plurality of lenslets. Each lenslet of the plurality of lenslets has the same shape.