Since the mid-1960s, lasers have been used for mark-making, jetching, and cutting. The world's first laser marking machine was razvijen in 1965 for the future drilling of holes in diamond manufacturing mold mold, and the technology naknadno gained rapid momentum.
The Early Uvod od CO2 laseri za označavanje Dogodilo se In 1967, And The Technology Reached maturity In The Mid{{1}s Through The Commercialization of Modern CO2 laser systems. Since then, laser marking systems have become a a mainstay in a wide range of industries from aerospace to medical device proizvodnja, pharmaceuticals, and retail.
Unatoč natjecanju s drugim tehnologijama takvi as tintni tisak, lasers have been stamped as a powerful, low-cost, low-cost, and repeatable mark-making technology. Važno , the process is ekološki i requires no potrošni materijal (tak as tinta, patrone, i papir). Now, laser označavanje sustavi no ne longer rely solely on CO2 laseri; others, such as fiber lasers and Nd: YAG solid-state light sources, offer smaller footprints, lower maintenance costs, and efficient alternatives; and advances in technological capabilities are evident. The fastest commercial laser marking machines can now process tens of thousands of Parts Hour.
While the evolution of laser marking technology has been rapid, manufacturers and users of laser marking systems are now looking for new routes to push the boundaries of marking technology to meet new challenges and improve processing results.
Ovi izazovi come from new materials to be obrađeno, and new applications to be served -each driving the need for growth and innovation while shaping the market for laser system development.
Za primjer, keramika are one of the najbrže rastuće materijal in laser obrada, i this materijal is posebno important in the THE Proizvod of Semiconductor Parts and Circuit boards. Often referred to as the "mother of all electronic system products," printan circuit boards (PCB) are a component used in virtualno all electronic products, and small changes in PCB development have a significant impact on market trends.
In recent years, the focus has shifted to the use of ceramika in konvencional printan circuit boards (PCB), which are made from plastic epoxy smole such as FP4. Ceramic circuit boards offer excellent heat treatability, are easy to implement, and provide superior performance compared to non-ceramic PCBs. Međutim, many marking techniques-such as screen processing are not appropriateable for ceramika. Ink marking of ceramika is cumbersome, requires sever potrošni materijal, and is not resistant to abrazija. The lomljivost i tvrdoća of keramika also make them one of the more difficult materijal to marka.
As a rezultat, laseri have risen to prominence in rene years as an alternative to ink-printing tehnologija, and many laser companies have razvijen systems particular suited to ceramic markings, such as diode-pumped solid-state UV lasers, as well as konvenalne CO2 laseri.
"This includes a trend towards miniaturization," says Andrew May, director of a laser marking company. However, he emphasizes that introducing new market trends does take time as well, "Is there a new application every week? No. But 15 years ago, we never marked on miniature ceramics, and now we do."
More fleksibilan materijali, oblici, i veličine
Međutim, deplit its rapid growth, keramičko marking in elektronika is not currently the laser marking tvrtka's largest market. %2The biggest industry for us is medicin devices," says Andrew May, "then automotive, electronics and general engineering components. The range of products Required varies Great depending on the industry and the Industry in question."
The company has eight laser systems (five of which are galv-driven) proxy marking services for a wide variety of applications. Because of this, and because the company is always acquiring new customers with bespoke requirements - May emphasizes that the ability to be flexible is vital. As a result, it uses lasers appropriateable for marking different materials, shapes, and sizes, as well as different batch sizes. The range of markers it can offer is also as diverse as its customer base, with its lasers capable of producing everything from codes to graphics and data matrice -all at high speeds and with high reproducibility.
Catering to ovo fleksibilnost je stoga a nužnost za laser označavanje stroj proizvođači takvi as Bluhm Systeme.
Another important trend in the the field of laser marking is the assurance and refinement of sljedivost - the individual identification of a product by means of a unique identification mark on its surface. This marking can take many forms, but increa popular and important is the use of data matrice such as two-dimensional codes (QR codes).
By marking an individual product with its own unique data matrix code, it can be easily identified in a non-intrusive way with key details such as manufacturer, batch number, and lifetime. This provides quality assurance: consumers and users can determine the exact origin of a product. This quality assurance creates a direct link between the consumer and the manufacturer and gives added value to the product, enabling them to compete with lower-cost manufacturing. Due to its incredible precision, the laser is ideally suited for writing detailed codes as small as 200 μm in size - too small to be seen by someone passing by, but easily checked with a smartphone if a person knows their location. At such sizes, data matrices can be used for anti-counterfeiting purposes, making it easy to check the authenticity of high-quality goods in a non-intrusive way. This has a huge impact on the pharmaceutical industry as it is a way to ensure that medicines such as pills are not produced and distributed fraudulently.
Komponenta sljedivost also plays an important role when used as evidence in in parnica. For example, if someone has a a medical transplant and the transplant fails, sljedivost allows them to know exactly what went wrong, where it went wrong, and in which batch it went wrong. This certainly increases efficiency in things like product recalls, but it also gives the customer more autonomy. It may not be obvious, but as society bes more interested in parnica, the technology that can enhance parnica presude will have to keep up.
However, current data matrix labeling systems face many challenges. Certain materials make handling more difficult - particularly glass and polymers, as well as thin metals and foils. The marking must also be permanent and stable, and the system must be able to accommodate a wide range of product sizes.
A particular challenge for some laser marking machines is marking on non-planar surfaces. Inkjet printers still outnumber laserski based systems in this area. As a result, system inženjers are working to overcome these challenges. Za primjer, some proizvođači of laser marking systems offer CO2 and fiber lasers with an average power of 20-500} W and varying cycle times, Equipped with Auto-Adjusting Focusing optics for use on 3D surfaces that can be adjusted to the curvature of the object. To account for surfaces with unknown geometries, the systems use an autofocus vision system that first scans the 3D surface and then adjusts the laser fokus tijekom the označavanje proces.
Međutim, ne-flat površine are not the only challenge facing manufacturers of laser marking systems. Dr. Florent Thibaut, CEO of a manufacturer of laser marking solutions, explains, "In many cases, marking solutions that are standardized globalno, such as inkjet, are not able to meet the requirements needed to provide a specific mark for each product. Currently, the usual use of lasers is already available as a continuous method% 2c just like using A Pen. Međutim, this is not fast enough - we need to find a solution that balances production volume and accuracy."
Sekvencijalno označavanje is pogođeno jer laser označavanje must change for each product, so having a marking technology that can be adapted to each product is critical. Manufacturers require extremely high throughput - the marking must adapt and the marking rate must be high - and this doesn't even take into account the difficulties of processing certain materials such as glass or polimeri.
To solve this problem, a laser marking rješenja proizvođač has patentirano its VULQ1 tehnologija, which won the Laser Systems Innovation Award at this year's Laser World Photonics Industrial Production Engineering, which does not opt for the use one continuous beam of light (as is the case with konvenal marking systems). Umjesto toga, it uses stotine of light beams to produce a stamp-like effect - producing an entire data Matrix Code in an instant. The method used to produce this unique stamp is dynamic beam shaping, which is accomplished using components such as the Spatial Light Modulator (SLM), which can adjust on a a per-shot basis to create beams with a unique structure.
While other laser marking technologies may prioritize high repetition rates for high propusnost, this technology uses higher pulse energy and parallel processing for better results.
Thibaut kaže, "This stamp-like marking scheme otključava tremendous produktivnost potential for 2D crtični kod marking and is simple to implement."
For example, its technology can be used to mark PVC medical parts with a 570-μm-wide data matrix code at a rate of 77,000 per hour. Other materials the system can mark include aluminum coated with HDPE polymer; soda-lime glass; borosilicate glass, pure gold, and epoxy molded composite.
Thibault dodaje, "Pattern sizes can be as small as 100 μm while maintain perfect clear čitbilost, even when marking in a straight line, as all dots are marked istodobno." What's more, because it doesn't have to rely on high repetition frekvencije, the technology can build systems using off-the-shelf infracrveno i zeleno Nd: YAG laseri with repetition frekvencije of around 20-30}Hz, osiguranje To ITS Systems Remain As Isplativo AS moguće.
Ultrabrzi laser okreti staklo u data storage
In 2013, Hitachi najavljeno its first quartz crystal data storage system, and in 2014, istraživači at the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Center (ORC) najavljeno their development of a femtosecond laser-etched glass system. The ORC has began suradnički with Microsoft Research on "Project Silica" ORC has began working with Microsoft Research on "Project Silica," which promises to develop zb-scale storage systems and % 22fundamentalno preispitivanje kako to graditi masa skladištenje sustavi.
Writing on glass is no easy task, however, and standard pulsed UV or CO2 laser systems can create microcracks - excessive heating of the material's surface can lead to damage at thermal hot spots. While this can be circumvented by reducing the pulse energy, it's not ideal when high precision is required. This is why researchers are turning to ultrafast (femtosecond) laser systems to minimize the risk of thermal damage. The ultra-short duration of the high-energy pulse ensures that enough energy is delivered to the material to mark it with extreme precision, creating only minimal heat-affected zones and avoiding microcracks.
The current limitation of this technology is the extremely low speed of data writing, and writing Tb-scale data can take years to complete. Thankly, ongoing breakthroughs are suggesting ways to increase data speeds. Posljednja godina, ORC istraživači objavljeno an energetski učinkovit laser pisanje metoda in the journal Optica: not only is this method fast, but it can store about 500 Tb of data on CD-size silica discs - they are 10,000 times denser than Blu-ray Disc storage technology.
The istraživači' new method uses a 515 nm fiber laser with a repetition frequency of 10 MHz and a pulse duration of 250 fs to create tiny pits in the silica glass, which contain individual nanolaminar structures measure only 500 × 50 nm. These high-gustoće nanostrukture can be used for long-term optical data storage. The istraživači postignuti a write speed of 1,000,000} voxels per second, which is ekvivalent to recording about 225 KB of data (more than 100 pages of text) per second.
The new method was used to write 5GB of text data onto a silicon glass disk the size of a konvencional CD-ROM with nearly 100% read accuracy. Each voxel contains four bits of information, with every two voxels corresponding to one text character. Using the write density provided by the method, the disc will able to hold 500 Tb of data. By nadogradnja the system for parallel writing, it should Be izvedivo To Write That Much Data In About 60 Days, The Researchers Said.
