b'20% enhanced surface nishwith combined technology hydrostatic and linear motor on GrindSmart830XWCoherentLaser cutting is ideal for creating tools like craniotomes and other drill bits.which is glass-reinforced epoxy laminate material. An overwhelming proportion of the composite dielec-tric material used in the interconnect industry remains FR-4, though a lot of other materials, including CFRP, are used extensively in the aerospace industry. CFRP is finding its way into a host of new applications and is amenable to laser processing, cutting, drilling and structuring.He is former CEO of a laser materials processing company, Pelham, New Hampshire-based PhotoMa-chining Inc., which has an array of laser tools ranging in wavelength from 248 nm in UV to 10(0.0004") CO 2in infrared and with pulse lengths ranging from millisec-onds to femtoseconds. This includes fiber lasers that operate in infrared with pulse lengths in the hundreds of nanoseconds.Schaeffer said how these laser tools are used de-pends on the application and the power of a laser. High-energy lasers can punch through many materi-als in one pulse, which effects faster processing but re-sults in losing some control. Lower-energy beams can be rapidly multipassed, which usually results in better cut quality and smaller feature sizesif a small kerf is usedbut at the sacrifice of processing speed. To en-hance cut cleanliness, laser contract manufacturers like PhotoMachining typically design laser machines with the smallest usable kerf.If we squeeze that energy per pulse down into a about the author Yesenia Duran is a Chicago-based freelance journal-ist who covers cutting tools and technology. She can be reached at [email protected]/cteguide.com41LaserMachining.indd 41 6/16/20 11:12 AM'