The welding of glass with ultrashort-pulsed lasers (USP) is usually conducted with microscope objectives. Their short working distance limits the thickness of the work piece, the usable laser power and the feed rate of the process. To increase the possible dimensions of the welding partners and the process speed to industrial levels, a research team from Jena presents USP welding with a galvoscanner and a common F-theta lens. In a new article, they discuss differences between the well-known breakdown regime and the filamentation regime, and show tensile measurements.
