Femtosecond (fs) lasers are ubiquitous tools in science and industry, their widespread applications aided by their increasingly wide commercial availability. One of the fastest growing markets for ultrafast lasers is in material processing with approximately 16.7 - 22.0 billion € (2022) and a growth annual rate of 7.7 - 10.0% expected in coming years. Most commercial femtosecond lasers for material processing, operate at around 1 μm wavelength and are in the category of high-cost laser systems. Therefore, advancements in laser technology that allow to increase the ablation speed and efficiency at minimal investment are key potential new market players. In this regard, the recently acclaimed ablation-cooling regime using GHz repetition rate bursts of femtosecond pulses, has shown to outperform traditional ablation speeds and has further potential to reduce the cost of the laser system: however, an aspect of this disruptive technology that has not been thoroughly studied in terms of market potential is the operation wavelength. In this regard, the 2-3 μm wavelength window (or so called short-wave infrared region (SWIR) region), has shown significant evidence that prominent materials such as glasses, polymers and water-rich tissue are expected to have a significantly reduced threshold single-pulse energy needed. Effectively, this means even cheaper laser systems can be used, which would be disruptive for the industry. However, GHz repetition rate fs-lasers in the SWIR region remain extremely rare, therefore the possibilities open by SWIR GHz ablation remain unexplored. The objective of this project is to develop suitable laser technology and explore the application and market potential for SWIR GHz ablation of glass.
