High speed and high accuracy scanner will be highlighted

Maynard, MA - Technical Solutions Marketing LLC (TSM) has been contracted by Next Scan Technology BV (NST) to perform market research and business development for NST’s polygon scan system within North America.

NST has developed a novel polygon scanner "Line Scan System," which provides high speed, high accuracy laser micromachining. It uses high pulse rate ultrafast lasers that outperform traditional galvos with 10 to 50 times higher throughput with no temperature drift, which adversely affects accuracy, said the company.

Picosecond lasers and femtosecond lasers with high pulse rates of 200 kHz to greater than 1 MHz have demonstrated good results in the lab and in limited production environments. "The short pulses from these lasers can be less than the thermal diffusion timescale, which results in vaporization of the material with no heat affect or melting that is critical in many applications, such as medical devices or aerospace applications, where burring is unacceptable," said Rick Slagle, managing partner of TSM. "Due to their high pulse rate, these lasers need a high speed, high resolution beam delivery to fully take advantage of these benefits."

"We have qualified a number of laser systems manufactured in Europe. In order to address the North American market we needed to find a firm that has extensive experience in the photonics industry. As such, we are delighted to partner with TSM based on their reputation and 20+ years of experience working with laser manufacturers, system integrators, and end users," said Lars Penning, managing director of NST.

"NST has adapted technology used in the highly demanding graphics industry and demonstrated the ability to truly unleash the potential of ultrafast lasers. The NST polygon scanner mated with an ultrafast laser will be a game changer in high speed micromachining," added Slagle.