Within the field of laser-assisted additive manufacturing, the application of ultrashort pulse lasers for selective laser melting came into focus recently. In contrast to conventional lasers, these systems provide extremely high peak power at ultrashort interaction times and offer the potential to control the thermal impact at the vicinity of the processed region by tailoring the pulse repetition rate. Consequently, materials with extremely high melting points such as tungsten or special composites such as AlSi40 can be processed. In this paper, we present the selective laser melting of copper using 500 fs laser pulses at MHz repetition rates emitted at a center wavelength of about 1030 nm. To identify an appropriate processing window, a detailed parameter study was performed. We demonstrate the fabrication of bulk copper parts as well as the realization of thin-wall structures featuring thicknesses below 100 μm. With respect to the extraordinary high thermal conductivity of copper which in general prevents the additive manufacturing of elements with micrometer resolution, this work demonstrates the potential for sophisticated copper products that can be applied in a wide field of applications extending from microelectronics functionality to complex cooling structures

Realizing visionary concepts of integrated photonic circuits, nanospectroscopy, and nanosensing will tremendously benefit from dynamically tunable coherent light sources with lateral dimensions on the subwavelength scale. Therefore, we demonstrate an individual nanowire laser based device which can be gradually tuned by reversible length changes of the nanowire such that uniaxial tensile stress is applied to the respective semiconductor gain material. By straining the device, the spontaneous excitonic emission of the nanowire shifts to lower energies caused by the bandgap reduction of the semiconductor. Moreover, the optical gain spectrum of the nanolaser can be precisely strain-tuned in the high excitation regime. The tuning of the emission does not affect the laser threshold of the device, which is very beneficial for practical applications. The applied length change furthermore adjusts the laser resonances inducing a redshift of the longitudinal modes. Thus, this concept of gradually and dynamically tunable nanolasers enables controlling and modulating the coherent emission on the nanoscale without changing macroscopic ambient conditions. This concept holds therefore huge impact on nanophotonic switches and photonic circuit technology.

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We investigate the use of ultra-short laser pulses for the selective melting of Al-Si40-powder to fabricate complex lightweight structures with wall sizes below 100 μm combined with higher tensile strength and lower thermal expansion coefficient in comparison to standard Al-Si alloys. During the cooling process using conventional techniques, large primary silicon particles are formed which impairs the mechanical and thermal properties. We demonstrate that these limitations can be overcome using ultra-short laser pulses enabling the rapid heating and cooling in a non-thermal equilibrium process. We analyze the morphology characteristics and micro-structures of single tracks and thin-walled structures depending on pulse energy, repetition rate and scanning velocity utilizing pulses with a duration of 500 fs at a wavelength of 1030 nm . The possibility to specifically change and optimize the microstructure is shown.

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