A system that uses a scalable array of individually controllable laser beams that are generated by a fiber array system to process materials into an object. The adaptive control of individual beams may include beam power, focal spot width, centroid position, scanning orientation, amplitude and frequency, piston phase and polarization states of individual beams. Laser beam arrays may be arranged in a two dimensional cluster and configured to provide a pre-defined spatiotemporal laser power density distribution, or may be arranged linearly and configured to provide oscillating focal spots along a wide processing line. These systems may also have a set of material sensors that gather information on a material and environment immediately before, during, and immediately after processing, or a set of thermal management modules that pre-heat and post-heat material to control thermal gradient, or both.

The invention relates to a drilling device comprising a light source configured to provide a light beam and a diffractive beam propagation device having a substantially planar surface, wherein the light source is configured such that the light beam is incident on the planar surface of the diffractive beam propagation device, and wherein the diffractive beam propagation device is configured to propagate the light beam as one or more propagated beams such that the one or more propagated beams, at least when being integrated over time, surround an area with a substantially circular shape. A use of the drilling device for drilling a hole in a work piece and a method suitable for drilling a hole in a work piece are also provided.

This invention provides an effective and rapid method of laser processing for separating semiconductor devices formed on hard and solid substrates (6) with a one pass process. The method is based on generating fractures along the scribing trajectory which extend deep into the bulk of a workpiece (6), wherein thermal stress is induced by delivering at least two processing (ultra short pulse) pulsed-beams (7), containing at least primary and secondary pulses. Primary pulses are used to generate a heat accumulated zone, which allows for more efficient absorption of the secondary pulses, which generate a sufficient heat gradient to produce mechanical failures, necessary for mechanically separating the workpiece (6) into separate pieces.

A method of manufacturing a flexible device includes joining a first surface of a support substrate to a back surface of a flexible substrate, the first surface being opposite to a second surface of the support substrate; forming an element layer on a front surface of the flexible substrate; and performing multidirectional oblique irradiation of an interface and its vicinity between the support substrate and the flexible substrate with laser light from the second surface of the support substrate to detach the support substrate from the flexible substrate.

A welding method includes: disposing a workpiece formed by stacking a plurality of metal foils in an area to be irradiated with laser light that contains a plurality of beams; irradiating a surface of the workpiece with the beams of the laser light by dispersing positions of the beams such that centers of the beams do not overlap with each other within a prescribed area on the surface; melting an irradiated part of the workpiece and performing welding; and setting each of the beams to have a power density with which no hole opens in the metal foils, and setting the power density of the beams and dispersing irradiating positions to be emitted so as to form a weld pool penetrating the workpiece by the beams.

An adjustment of the amount of energy in at least one specific applying unit is executed when energy is applied to a cylindrical member pair in which another cylindrical member is inserted inside a cylindrical member to melt and weld the cylindrical member pair in a circumferential direction. The adjustment is executed in association with a rotation angle to satisfy a relationship of Pd+Pw>, wherein Pd is an output decease rotation angle that decreases the energy amount from a steady energy amount HP applied from the specific applying unit in a welding end process, Pw is an overlap rotation angle at which the irradiation parts around the cylindrical member pair overlap with the steady energy amount HP, and is a separation angle between the specific applying unit and another applying unit adjacent to each other in a rotation direction around the axis.

A laser processing apparatus includes a branching unit configured to branch a laser beam to a first optical path and a second optical path, a condenser configured to condense the branched laser beams on a processing face of a workpiece, an output power measuring unit configured to measure the output power of the laser beam emitted from a laser beam generation unit and having passed through the condenser, and a blocking member positioning mechanism disposed between the condenser and the output power measuring unit and capable of positioning a blocking member between a first laser beam blocking position at which the blocking member blocks only the laser beam of the first optical path from between the branched laser beams and a retracted position at which the blocking member blocks none of the laser beams.

A wafer processing method of dividing a wafer into a plurality of chips along a plurality of division lines includes: a shield tunnel forming step of causing a focusing point of a pulsed laser beam of a wavelength having a transmitting property with respect to the wafer to be positioned inside the wafer and applying the pulsed laser beam, and then forming a plurality of shield tunnels each including a fine hole and an amorphous region shielding the fine hole along the division lines; and a wafer dividing step of applying an external force to the wafer and then dividing the wafer in which the shield tunnels are formed along the division lines, in which the pulsed laser beam is split to have two or more of the focusing points which are along a direction parallel to the division lines.

A laser apparatus may include a spectrum controller and a spectrum modulator. The spectrum controller may control a center wavelength and/or a bandwidth of a spectrum of a laser beam. The spectrum modulator may modulate the spectrum of the laser beam having the center wavelength and/or the bandwidth controlled by the spectrum controller. Thus, the laser beam may have the spectrum optimal for a semiconductor fabrication process. Particularly, the substrate may be accurately diced using the laser beam having the optimal spectrum.

A smart additive manufacturing system uses a spectrometer to collect emission spectra along an optical axis from a laser-generated plasma plume, and wherein the laser beam and the optical axis of the emission spectra are co-axial, at least in the vicinity of the melt pool, thereby minimizing the fluctuation of spectral signals caused by ambient pressure/gas variations. The laser beam passes through a beam splitter prior to reaching the work piece, and the emission spectra from the work piece are redirected by the beam splitter to the spectrometer, and wherein the laser beam and the optical axis of the emission spectra are co-axial between the work piece and the beam splitter. The beam splitter may be a dichroic mirror or other type of beam splitter, including holographic beam splitters, and spectral filtering may be carried out with separate optical elements, as long as the overall goal of on-axis excitation and collection is achieved.