Sapphires to assist in tool design
Modern micro-machining techniques are becoming more and more demanding as far as precision, cost and mass production are concerned. In an effort to make industries more competitive in the laser assisted tooling area, new techniques were designed to facilitate these concerns. Laser assisted processes in manufacturing micro-parts and tools, are usually based on a process of etching. From thermo-chemical etching to photochemical etching, lasers have their role. While etching is a versatile and extremely precise procedure, it is expensive, time consuming and has an unwanted impact on the environment. Using commercially grown sapphires presents not only a method to improve the process for laser-assisted tooling, but also the advantages of the material itself can be exploited. Sapphires have much sought after properties, such as resistance to tremendous temperatures and pressures, high threshold against laser damage and longer operation life and lower maintenance costs. As such they can be used repeatedly in laser processes such as ablation, embossing and extrusion. For example, in embossing, where the work piece is pre-heated according to design, sapphire cylinders are used to direct the laser radiation directly onto the work piece. The sapphire is used as an active tool part and can be optionally installed with the embossing structure inside. The sapphire's properties make it the best-suited material for these processes both from an economic and technical point of view.
