light! 004 | The car of the future

DRIVING
CEIT
Ultrashort
pulse lasers
for automotive applications
Many times great innovations happen in the smallest of
details. Details that produce special comfort, that lead to
a better interior or exterior finish or that reduce friction
enough to save on fuel. One of the tools being implemented
in industrial production processes (and also in the automobile)
is the laser tool.
These tools have been used for a long time for welding processes,
but they are increasingly being used in other industrial
applications: drilling and cutting of materials, surface
thermal treatments, control of mechanical properties, joining
dissimilar materials, etc.
Within the wide variety of laser sources available on the
market, the most modern are known as ultrashort or femtosecond
pulse sources. The main characteristic of processes
with ultrashort pulse is the almost zero thermal affectation.
It is in the specific case of femtosecond pulses, which
have a duration of around 10-15 seconds, that this characteristic
manifests itself in all its potential.
The energy emitted by the laser is transmitted in such a
short space of time that it cannot be dissipated from the
electron network through the atoms, thus producing a direct
transition from solid state to gas, that is, sublimation
without producing any thermal change in the rest of the
material.
The main result of this ultra-fast process is the ability to
perform processes with a very high resolution that could
only be dreamed of just a few years ago but is now available
to end users: resolutions in the one micrometre range
are achievable in most processes, falling to 0.2 in the case
of superficial processes.