
The new Monaco from Coherent, Inc. is a femtosecond laser designed from the ground up to provide flexible performance and high reliability, all at a market enabling price point, the company reports. Specifically, the Monaco is a closed, one box system that combines a 1035 nm, solid-state oscillator together with an amplifier to yield a 40 µJ pulse energy at a repetition rate of 1 MHz (40W of average power), in pulsewidths of under 400 fs. In order to match its output to the precise requirements of the application, Monaco can easily be operated from single shot to its full repetition rate, and even adjusted to produce pulsewidths of >10 ps.
The design, materials and manufacturing methods employed for the Monaco have all been optimized to deliver consistently high performance in 24/7, industrial operating environments. or example, all pump and amplifier optical components are contained in a single, sealed laser head which utilizes active cleaning to maintain output power and lifetime, as well as virtually eliminating the need for routine maintenance. The laser design itself has been iteratively optimized through the use of Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT) protocols, and each production unit is subjected to Highly Accelerated Stress Screening (HASS) to ensure reliability.
High peak power, femtosecond regime laser pulsewidths are well known to produce reduced heat affected zones (HAZ) and a lower ablation threshold as compared to longer pulsewidths, thus enabling high precision processing of a wide range of metal, semiconductor and organic materials. The unique combination of short pulsewidth and high repetition rate from the Monaco make it well matched for high speed, cost effective cutting of plastic and polymer thin films, silicon wafer scribing, and strengthened glass cutting. Monaco is especially useful for micromachining the inhomogeneous, composite substrates used in microelectronics fabrication. Monaco may also be configured to directly address ophthalmic applications, including LASIK flap cutting and cataract procedures.