Spinal canal stenosis – a bony narrowing of the spinal canal – can be agonizing. If it presses on the spinal cord, it comes to chronic pain and paralysis. Surgical intervention is often the only solution: In Germany alone, 111,000 cases are treated every year. However, since stenosis is close to the spinal cord, bony decompression, in which the constrictions are removed using high-speed milling, is risky. A robot-assisted, optically monitored laser procedure, which is currently in the pre-development stage at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen, could help to minimize the risk of such procedures in the future.

For hydrogen technology to become a key to the energy transition, it needs to make a decisive step forward: toward broad application. The main factors holding back this longed-for breakthrough, however, are the high costs of expensive materials and complex manufacturing processes for fuel cells and electrolyzers.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT is tackling these challenges and working hard to develop cost-efficient and scalable solutions. Contact us for more information.

A new ultrashort pulse (USP) laser beam source from TRUMPF, designed for industrial use, will significantly expand the range of applications of USP laser processes. The Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen will be systematically exploring the potential of this beam source with an average output of 1 kW in the coming months. Among other things, experiments are planned to optimize processes in battery and fuel cell production, toolmaking and semiconductor technology, as well as to test various beam guidance strategies.

Many of these pilot applications have their origins in the Fraunhofer internal Cluster of Excellence Advanced Photon Sources (CAPS), to which 21 institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft belong.

In “Surface Technology,” Fraunhofer ILT focuses on developing laser-based technologies for the efficient processing, functionalization and finishing of surfaces.

Thin films are used for electronic applications, for wear and corrosion protection as well as for optical and structural applications. Since lasers have specific advantages – they are locally selective, have inline capability as well as placing a low thermal load of the workpieces – they open up many new possibilities in designing new production processes and components in which functionalities can be integrated.

Component condition data, such as thermal and mechanical loads, can be collected by special sensors and form a basis for predictive maintenance, big data and AI approaches in production. Fraunhofer ILT combines various manufacturing methods, for example, to equip printed lightweight components with appropriate sensors. By combining Laser Powder Bed Fusion with digital printing and laser post-treatment processes, the institute is paving the way for the production of “sensing” components.

Thanks to their functionality, structured surfaces contribute, for example, to minimizing friction in combustion engines, to increasing efficiency in lighting systems or to improving the activation of chemical processes in fuel cells. Surface properties also play an important role as a quality feature of products. 

In “Optical Systems,” Fraunhofer ILT focuses on providing its partners with considerable expertise in beam shaping and beam guiding, frequency conversion as well as in design, layout and packaging of optical components.

Commercial and self-developed software tools are used to design or optimize optics. With special algorithms, Fraunhofer ILT designs optical free-form surfaces so that the industry can manufacture them later with laser-based processes. Modern diffractive or refractive optical elements, for example, can bring light into almost any shape by means of adapted diffraction structures. Complex beam profiles or patterns can be realized as well as a distribution of the energy of a beam to a whole array of similar partial beams. Integrated into new laser systems, the optical systems Fraunhofer ILT develops enable increased productivity compared to conventional techniques, even in precision manufacturing on the micrometer scale.

Fraunhofer ILT is developing scanners that can deflect laser radiation very quickly and at high precision, and apply it specifically to workpieces. The institute either adapts commercially available scanners to specific applications or develops new systems for drilling, ablation, cutting, welding, additive manufacturing or metrological tasks.

In this field of research, Fraunhofer ILT develops innovative laser beam sources and high-quality optical components and systems. Fraunhofer’s team of experienced laser experts develops beam sources with tailored spatial, temporal and spectral properties and output powers. Their spectrum ranges from diode lasers, fiber and solid-state lasers to high-power cw lasers and ultrafast lasers, and from single-frequency systems to broadband tunable lasers.

Among others, the institute has focused on developing laser systems that achieve high powers with ultrafast pulses. In the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Advanced Photon Sources CAPS, 13 Fraunhofer Institutes have been pooling their expertise to develop high-power ultrafast laser systems and to explore where they can be applied.

Fraunhofer ILT is also developing software for modeling and simulation that enables them to design a specific laser beam for certain tasks, e.g. by shaping the intensity profile. The experts use special algorithms to design optical freeform surfaces for redistributing the laser power through light refraction and reflection.

These lasers and optical systems can be applied in a wide range: from laser material processing and metrology to applications in biotechnology and medical technology all the way to use in space applications and basic research

Not only can a large number of diagnostic and therapeutic applications be optimized through the use of laser technology, but they become possible in the first place. As a non-contact instrument, light offers great advantages, both in the manufacture of corresponding instruments and in diagnostics itself.

For surgery, wound treatment and tissue therapy, Fraunhofer ILT is developing lasers with adapted wavelengths, microsurgical systems and new laser therapy methods in close cooperation with partners from the life sciences sector. In microsurgery, novel measurement methods based on optical coherence tomography (OCT) are used. Together with experts in neurosurgery, the scientists at Fraunhofer ILT are developing laser-based solutions to reduce, for example, the psychological stress and the risk of injury for patients during operations.

With the help of laser processes such as joining, structuring and functionalization, application-adapted lab-on-a-chip solutions can also be implemented, which, for example, make rapid multiplex diagnostics possible and can be used for point-of-care diagnostics.

Patient-specific implants can be manufactured using Laser Powder Bed Fusion or laser-based stereolithography. Additively manufactured high-resolution and biocompatible scaffold structures for novel implants are used, for example, in regenerative medicine or in the field of organoid test systems in the pharmaceutical industry.