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An overview on femtosecond laser pulse shaping techniques applied to control of the initial photo-physical steps involved in materials processing is presented. First, pulse shaping methodology in frequency domain is introduced and examples of shaped pulses relevant to laser microfabrication are discussed. Then, the use of tailored femtosecond pulses to control the initial steps of laser processing of high band gap materials is demonstrated. In particular, control on basic ionization processes acting as the initial photo-physical step of the ablation dynamics is exerted by highly asymmetric femtosecond laser pulse shapes generated by Third Order Dispersion (TOD).

Visible and UV lasers with nanosecond pulse durations, diffraction-limited beam quality and high pulse repetition rates have demonstrated micro-ablation in a wide variety of materials with sub-micron precision and sub-micron-sized heat-affected zones. The copper vapour laser (CVL) is one of the important industrial lasers for micro-ablation applications. Manufacturing applications for the CVL include orifice drilling in fuel injection components and inkjet printers, micro-milling of micromoulds, via hole drilling in printed circuit boards and silicon machining. Recent advances in higher power (100W visible, 5W UV), diffraction-limited, compact CVLs are opening new possibilities for manufacturing with this class of nanosecond laser.

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