Lambda Physik (Fort Lauderdale, FL) has recently shipped the first commercially available 180-W KrF industrial Excimer laser. The Lambda STEEL (STable Energy Excimer Laser) series is designed for high throughput and high duty-cycle industrial production. Pulse energy stability makes this excimer laser ideal for high throughput microstructuring. Lambda's 600K device delivers high power, 180 W, stabilized output energy of 600mJ at 300 Hz.

With a pulse duration of about 20 ns, an output power of 30 MW can be achieved with the new laser. Maintenance time is minimized by the complete modular structure of the laser. The STEEL 600K also offers an improved Fluorine optimised NovaTube for extended system availability and low running costs, as well as new beam shielding and mirror mounts for ease of use.

Other STEEL models include the 670, a 200-W XeCl excimer laser, and the 1000, a 300- W XeCl excimer laser. The possible applications for lasers in the series range from microstructuring to manipulating of surface or material properties, e.g. hardening, passivation or recrystallization. Recrystallization is the most prominent example for applications using Lambda STEEL, namely Excimer Laser Annealing (ELA) for low-temperature poly silicon TFT LCD flat panel display production.

For more information, visit www.lambdaphysik.com

Thu Oct 11 11:33:00 CDT 2001