May 11, 2012 -- The Innovation Award Laser Technology 2012 recognized 3D metal micro-structuring laser technology from Schepers, excimer laser design for OLED and LCD display fab from Coherent, and a laser brazing head technology from Precitec Optronik.

Stephan Brüning, responsible for R&D laser applications at Schepers GmbH & Co KG, was awarded the €10,000 Innovation Award Laser Technology 2012 prize at this week's International Laser Technology Congress (AKL). His team was recognized for their work in "3D micro-structuring of large-scale metal surfaces for embossing and printing applications with high-power ultrashort-pulse lasers." Brüning also has been awarded the title of Fellow of both AKL and the European Laser Institute (ELI).

The 2nd place for the award went to a team led by Coherent's Rainer Pätzel focused on excimer lasers for active-matrix liquid crystal display (LCD)- and organic light-emitting diode (OLED)-based flat-panel displays (FPDs). Coherent's high-power 308nm excimer laser with pulse repetition rate of 600Hz and stabilized output power of 1.2kW provides fast cycle times for excimer laser annealing (ELA) on Gen-6 FPD panels, increasing throughput over typical Gen-4 tools. In ELA, a laser processes amorphous silicon (a-Si) into low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS), increasing electron mobility by more than 100x. The laser line beam has a final homogeneity of 1.8% to allow 10-20 overlapping irradiations of each location with the same fluence when scanning the substrate. Coherent's state of the art cylindrical optics deliver a homogeneous line beam with dimension 750 mm X 0.4 mm for Gen-6 ELA, creating a display backplane with very homogeneous 50nm film of polysilicon of approximately 0.3um² grain size providing 150cm²/Vs -- 2 orders of magnitude higher than the electron mobility of an amorphous silicon backplane. The output power of 1.2 kW was achieved by spatially merging and temporally synchronizing two high-power UV-oscillators, each capable of 1 Joule energy/pulse and 600 Hz pulse frequency. The VYPER dual-oscillator laser platform (photo above) was combined with a novel beam delivery concept for beam forming, mixing, homogenizing and projecting the incoming laser beams into one homogeneous line beam.

Third prize went to a team led by Precitec Optronik's Markus Kogel-Hollacher for a 3D-capable co-axial laser brazing head with integrated seam tracking.

The Innovation Award Laser Technology is a European research prize awarded at two-year intervals by the associations Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik e.V. and the European Laser Institute (ELI), conferred on an individual researcher or on an entire project group, whose exceptional skills and dedicated work have led to an outstanding innovation in the field of laser technology. The scientific and technological projects in question must center on the use of laser light in materials processing and the methods of producing such light, and must furthermore be of demonstrable commercial value to industry. Jury decisions are based on:

• Proven commercial benefit
  
• Innovative quality of the resulting laser beam source, laser manufacturing process or laser system
  
• Scientific / technological quality of the underlying research
  
• Creative approach to technology demonstrated by the designated individual or project group
  
• Importance of the contribution of the applicant's work to the overall innovative process
  

More information about the awards and this year's winners can be viewed at www.innovation-award-laser.org.

Article courtesy of our sister publication Industrial Laser Solutions. Visit http://www.industrial-lasers.com/index.html for more information.