Development of an enhanced laser beam technology based on a new optical system for industrial laser processing applications.

Project Information

inPhocal

Grant agreement ID: 190165136

DOI

10.3030/190165136

Project closed

EC signature date 16 March 2023

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2024

Funded under

• The European Innovation Council (EIC)

Total cost

€ 3 586 578,75

EU contribution

€ 2 499 999,00

Coordinated by

INPHOCAL BV
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - inPhocal (Development of an enhanced laser beam technology based on a new optical system for industrial laser processing applications.)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

During our project we are setting up the production of our machines, this a complicated journey as the integration has to be as if the machine replaces a currently standardized machine in order to have a fast scalable growth. However the technology is that ground breaking that just a simple integration is not the way to implement. So, as planned we are conducting pilots with various costumers integrating it in a way we can increase their production and decrease the inkt used. Moreover there is less failure and genuinely failure leading to decrease in waste of products at our customer.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Main milestones:
high speed printing bottom can
<30ms printing in crown
< 80 ms printing inside package
Differentiation than in the project plan. To reach the result @tetrapak we first used a UV laser, after the positive results and the pilot project in 2023. They are now deciding to continue with the caps as well. The caps will be printed with fiber and the production set up will also be critical for this.

Other differentiation: the programming of the print correction is not done external, because the cutting edge technology was so deviant of the known physics that the tech team did not get confident during the meetings with Freeptyc. Moreover in the discussions to show evidence piece by piece they overpriced themselves. The solution was to hire people resulting in a faster result that also generated new IP

The 3rd deviation: During the pilots with customers we noticed that fairly big clients with repetitive ask are our focus; therefore automated application for small customers was not a sensible thing to do. Instead of that the tech team enforced the Zemax and PHP forces. This led to easier calculation per costumer. This and the costumer structure we encoutered also decreased

Last remark: At the Female cohort 3 of EISMEA the coach given to our female founder made remarks on the application of the new developed tech for Tetra Pak for Semicon. Resulting in additional IP. The semicolon team is now a fully women led team.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

With the results realized in 2023, the beam was made to set up in the real-time factory. In order to reach production readiness, our tech team had to established factual results for the beam. This led to new beam specifications which overclasses the lab results as well as the prototypes we had until November 2022.
With this results we are not only on track to have a full scale (and in itself scalable) production line in the second year. The 50 machines will consist of a 55 watt fiber laser instead of the 30 watt earlier planed and a SCAPs3 instead of a SCAPs2 but will run even 2 times faster with a focus length of a minimum of 11 cm instead of the 4 we had in the prototype version.

The side-effect of the new outcome is that the heat of this improved beam is constant resulting in a beam that has controlled reflection, decreasing debris at the sides of a cut. In 2024 downtimes of the labAnna en Kathy will set up simple trail for this on YAG, InPh and SiNi (2-4). The small lab test will be scaled up during 2025. InPhocal is preparing cleanroom testing and budget for these cleanroom test.

InPhocal Laser