Precise material removal at micrometer scale is essential across manufacturing, optics, and analytical technologies. Deep ultraviolet excimer lasers enable highly controlled ablation of polymers, glass, coatings, and complex materials without introducing thermal damage.
Controlled Material Removal for High-Precision Applications
Many advanced manufacturing and analytical processes require material to be removed with high accuracy while preserving surrounding structures. The ability to control depth, edge quality, and process stability is critical for achieving consistent results.
This section outlines how excimer lasers enable precise ultraviolet material removal across a wide range of applications, from micromachining and cleaning to marking and analytical sampling.
Precise Cold Laser Ablation Applications
Precise material removal at micrometer scale is essential across manufacturing, optics, and analytical technologies. Deep ultraviolet excimer lasers enable highly controlled ablation of polymers, glass, coatings, and complex materials without introducing thermal damage.
UV Micromachining, Structuring and Micro-Drilling
Many advanced components require micro-scale structures such as holes, channels, or functional surface patterns that must be produced without thermal distortion. Deep-UV laser micromachining enables precise material removal for these structures while maintaining excellent edge quality and dimensional control.
Excimer lasers are widely used for precision micromachining where extremely small features and minimal thermal impact are required. Their deep-UV wavelengths enable photochemical ablation, allowing thin layers of material to be removed with high accuracy and minimal heat-affected zones.
This makes excimer processing particularly effective for polymers, thin coatings, glass, and engineered materials used in advanced manufacturing. Typical processes include micro-drilling of small holes, fabrication of fine channels or apertures, and shallow surface structuring used to modify adhesion, wetting, or bonding characteristics.
Examples range from micro-features in medical polymer components and precision surface textures to fine via formation in thin glass substrates and other micro-structured functional surfaces.
MLase GmbH develops compact excimer laser sources designed for integration into industrial micromachining platforms. Stable pulse energy, homogeneous beam profiles, and repetition rates up to the kilohertz range enable reliable production of high-precision micro-features across a wide range of materials.
Fine Wire Stripping Using UV Laser Ablation
Excimer lasers enable highly selective laser stripping and wire stripping of polymer insulation from ultra-fine wires without damaging the underlying metal conductor. The deep-UV interaction allows precise, non-contact insulation removal based on laser ablation, making the process suitable for thin dielectric coatings used in medical leads, sensors, and micro-electronic assemblies.
Fine wire stripping with excimer lasers relies on the strong ultraviolet absorption of many polymer insulation materials. Short UV pulses remove thin coatings such as polyimide, ETFE, PTFE, PFA, polyurethane, or enamel while leaving the metallic conductor unaffected. Because the process is photochemical rather than thermal, the metal core remains undamaged and free of mechanical stress.
This selective interaction makes excimer lasers particularly well suited for very small wire diameters where mechanical wire stripping or thermal methods would risk conductor damage. The UV-driven laser stripping process produces clean edges and highly reproducible strip lengths even on wires smaller than 40 AWG. Excimer-based stripping is widely used in the production of implantable medical leads, micro-sensors, and precision electronic assemblies where reliable insulation removal is required prior to welding, bonding, or electrical connection.
MLase GmbH develops compact excimer laser systems that integrate into automated wire stripping platforms for high-precision insulation removal. Stable ultraviolet pulses and uniform beam delivery support reproducible laser stripping of delicate fine wires in both medical device manufacturing and high-reliability electronic assemblies.
Precision UV Laser Cleaning of Sensitive Surfaces
Sensitive components often require the removal of organic residues, particles, or thin surface films without mechanical contact or chemical solvents. Deep-UV laser cleaning based on controlled laser ablation provides a precise method to eliminate contamination while preserving delicate materials and coatings.
UV excimer cleaning relies on photochemical bond breaking to remove organic contamination layers from material surfaces. High-energy photons at 193 nm and 248 nm break molecular bonds in residues, enabling selective removal of thin films with minimal thermal impact on the underlying substrate.
Because the interaction depth of deep-UV radiation is very shallow, the process is well suited for cleaning sensitive materials such as optical components, composite materials including CFRP, and precision metal parts used in advanced manufacturing.
Typical applications include preparation of optical surfaces before coating processes, removal of organic residues from precision components, and surface preparation of composite materials prior to bonding or assembly.
MLase GmbH develops compact excimer laser sources designed for integration into automated UV cleaning platforms. Stable pulse energy and homogeneous beam profiles support reliable, repeatable removal of surface contamination in industrial production environments.
Laser Ablation for ICP-MS (LA-ICP-MS) and TOF-MS Analysis
Precise sampling of solid materials for mass spectrometry requires controlled laser ablation using short-wavelength ultraviolet radiation. UV laser sources such as ArF excimer lasers operating at 193 nm enable highly reproducible material removal and support LA-ICP-MS workflows used for quantitative and isotopic analysis of geological, biological, semiconductor, and ceramic samples.
Deep-UV excimer lasers enable controlled UV laser ablation that produces clean ablation with minimal thermal impact. This low-thermal ablation behavior reduces elemental fractionation and preserves spatial fidelity during laser ablation, making the technique particularly suitable for high-precision LA-ICP-MS and ICP-TOF-MS measurements.
Short nanosecond pulses generate well-defined ablation craters with minimal thermal effects, supporting efficient particle transport into ICP-MS and TOF-MS detection systems. The resulting low-thermal ablation improves analytical stability and enables rapid elemental imaging, high-resolution mapping, and fast transient detection.
MLase GmbH develops compact excimer UV laser sources optimized for integration into LA-ICP-MS and LA-TOF-MS platforms. These systems deliver stable UV pulses that ensure reproducible laser ablation and reliable analytical performance across a wide range of materials, supporting high-precision spectroscopic workflows including UV spectroscopy and advanced elemental analysis.
Water- or liquid-cooled operation allows continuous operation with repetition rates up to 1 kHz, enabling stable laser ablation and consistent measurement conditions in both laboratory and industrial analytical environments.
UV Laser Fabrication of Optical Waveguides
Excimer lasers enable the fabrication of optical waveguide structures in polymers and glass-based photonic materials through controlled deep-UV exposure and precision patterning. In many photonic manufacturing processes, laser ablation is used to remove or structure thin material layers, enabling precise waveguide formation for integrated optical components used in photonics, sensing, and telecommunications devices.
In waveguide fabrication, excimer lasers are used to locally modify optical materials or create shallow surface structures that guide light within a defined path. Depending on the process design, ultraviolet exposure can induce controlled refractive-index changes or generate precisely patterned channel structures in thin photonic layers through selective ablation of the material.
Deep-UV wavelengths such as 193 nm and 248 nm interact strongly with many photonic materials, enabling highly localized processing with minimal thermal impact. These photochemical interactions support highly controlled laser ablation processes that preserve the surrounding material while forming precise micro-structures.
Similar ultraviolet mechanisms are also used in fiber Bragg grating inscription, where UV exposure permanently modifies the optical properties of silica fibers. In planar photonic platforms, these interactions can be applied to form integrated waveguide structures and optical routing elements. Excimer-based processing is therefore widely used in the development of planar lightwave circuits, integrated optical sensors, and photonic device platforms where precise UV exposure and stable beam profiles are required.
MLase GmbH develops compact excimer laser sources that integrate into photonic processing platforms for optical waveguide fabrication and prototyping. Stable millijoule-class ultraviolet pulses and homogeneous beam profiles support mask-based exposure systems, selective ablation, and precision UV patterning used in advanced photonic device manufacturing.
High-Resolution UV Laser Marking
Permanent identification and micro-scale surface features can be created by removing extremely thin material layers from glass, polymers, and coated components. Deep-UV laser marking enables high-contrast features while avoiding cracks, melting, or thermal stress.
Excimer laser marking uses photochemical ablation to generate shallow engravings and micro-structured features on sensitive materials. The short wavelengths of excimer lasers interact strongly with many transparent and polymer materials, allowing precise removal of ultra-thin surface layers.
This enables crisp, micron-scale markings on glass components, optical elements, polymer parts, and coated surfaces. Because the process introduces very little heat into the material, it prevents deformation, micro-cracking, or coating damage that can occur with conventional marking technologies.
Typical applications include traceability markings on optical components, semi-visible markings on lenses, identification features on precision parts, and shallow micro-structures used in advanced manufacturing.
MLase GmbH develops compact excimer laser sources that integrate into high-precision marking systems. Stable pulse energy and homogeneous beam profiles support consistent mark quality and repeatable micro-structuring in industrial production environments.
Why Excimer Lasers
Our Commitment to Quality
MLase operates as a medical device manufacturer with a quality management system certified according to ISO 13485/ EN ISO 13485. Our products are developed and manufactured to meet the highest standards of performance, reliability, and quality.
This commitment ensures that our excimer laser systems support safe and dependable operation in demanding medical applications.
Learn about our technology, company, products, and OEM partnership model
- MLI Series of industrial standard excimer lasers with 193 nm and 248 nm
- Multiple optics, power and cooling configurations
- Enabling fast adaptions to application or marktes
- Understand our OEM Partnership Model
- Typical integration elements
- Infrastructure supporting scalable volume-requirements
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