Green photonics for laser-based manufacturing

Abstract

products, by providing novel members, parts, and products through the realization of high-precision, high-quality processing of difficult-to-process materials. By introducing the laser technology to the manufacturing process, we hope to achieve greening of the product and manufacturing processes.The greening of the manufacturing process means the promotion of energy saving, material saving, and waste reduction throughout the whole process of new manufacturing methods compared to the conventional methods. Since the energy saving measures are thoroughly implemented in the Japanese factories, expectation is high for altering the process content such as process saving and reduction in the number of parts rather than simple renewal of a process. Greening of the products means that the production volume of energy-saving members and parts that are desired by the market are stabilized and used in products. Although the effect may be small for a single part, the ripple effect on society as a whole may be large if the amount used throughout the market is enormous. Particularly, if such parts are used as main parts of durable consumer goods, the energy-saving effect will be enhanced.For the R&D of material processing technology using lasers in Japan, budgets are allotted heavily by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), for industry-academia collaboration toward industrial application. Overseas, the collaboration IntroductionThe clarification of interaction between photon and matter substances and photon (light) has been an important academic research topic since ancient times, and currently, research is promoted actively as an advanced topic in many countries. Looking at the process of photon absorption by substances, various excitation states are induced in substances (atoms and molecules) through photon absorption, followed by a relaxation process, chemical bond cleavage, and others. In the relaxation process from high-vibrational excitation, a hightemperature state occurs through the so-called photothermal process, and in the chemical bond cleavage from an electron excitation state, the chemical reactions such as dissociation of molecules and recombination of chemical bonds occur through the photochemical process. The main characteristic in practical use is that area-selective localized treatment to a specific area is possible by irradiating the base material with light focused into micro-patterns or micro-spotlights.The main topic of this paper is the processing technology using lasers, and the localized laser treatment technology based on the characteristic photo-excitation process induced by irradiating high-power lasers to various advanced materials including polymers, glass and ceramic, metals, and composites is addressed. The goal is to use the laser excitation processing technology for cost reductio...