HABRIA
About the Research Program
HABRIA: Holmium Amplifier for Breakthrough Research and Industrial Applications
Lasers operating in the near- and mid-IR spectral range are widely used for industrial processing of materials, often employing pico- or nanosecond pulse durations. Due to the good availability of laser sources at 1 µm and 10 µm applications often focus on this wavelength range. However, ultrashort pulses operating around a wavelength of 2 µm can be highly advantageous for the processing of material composites, such as reinforced plastics, as well as for biological tissue processing. Pulses at 2 µm allow for a selective processing required for the individual materials, and at the same time, the penetration depth is low in tissue, which makes them safe in operation and handling. Thus, the lacking availability of powerful, cost-efficient 2 µm laser sources has resulted in little application of such laser systems for material processing.
The HABRIA project aims to develop a compact, powerful, turn-key laser system at a wavelength of 2 µm in order to make 2 µm laser systems readily available for the material processing market. The project consortium will integrate the laser system into a laser processing workstation and demonstrate micromachining of composite materials for the automotive and aerospace industry. Additional applications for the versatile 2 µm laser system will be investigated, e.g. for biomedical applications and research in LIDAR.
We are grateful for funding provided by Eurostars.
