Collaborative Project “eVerest”

More and more, laser structuring is becoming important in the tool and mold making industry. While structured surfaces – thanks to their functionality – contribute to minimizing friction in combustion engines or increasing the efficiency of LED-based lighting systems, for example, the surface texture is increasingly becoming a quality feature of products with regard to their optical and haptic properties.

The manufacturing processes currently used for tool texturing, such as photochemical etching, are limited in their precision and flexibility. Laser ablation with (ultra)short pulsed laser radiation, however, is becoming an increasingly important technology that can be used to establish a digital process chain and increase design flexibility. Since their ablation is predominantly based on evaporation, ultrashort pulse laser beam sources achieve extremely high precision. A disadvantage so far is the limited productivity – ablation rates of up to 1 mm³/min.

The goal of the eVerest project is to develop highly flexible machine technology for precision laser processing, focusing on an increase of the effective ablation rate. With it, functional structures can be generated in tools and components at the highest geometric resolutions in the micrometer range without the user needing essential knowledge of the actual technology. All necessary subdomains of laser processing are integrated into the machine and operating concept, such as the virtual design of the product including the development and visualization of the structures while also taking the new possibilities of laser surface processing into account.

Presentation of the eVerest project at LASER World of PHOTONICS 2019

For passenger car interiors today, various processes are used to emboss plastic linings. However, the production of the tools for this takes an extremely long time. With a new laser machine this can be done three times as fast, and even finer structures are possible. The know-how for the various components and processes was developed in the eVerest research project by partners from research and industry. The first results were presented in Munich from June 24 to 27 at the world's leading trade fair for components, systems and applications in photonics.

Supported by:                                      Project Sponsor:      

The main topics include integrating components into the innovative machine:

• Development of a fiber-coupled high-power ultrashort pulse laser source,
• Process development for a sequential photonic process chain consisting of laser ablation and laser polishing,
• System technology for increasing the ablation rate including a fast z-shifter and intelligent algorithms for scanner control,
• OCT short-coherence sensor technology for the analysis of topographic surface profiles and
• Virtual component design including development, synthesis and visualization of structures.

In addition to these components, processing results – structured mold tools – were also exhibited at the LASER World of Photonics in Munich from June 24 to 27, 2019. With the technologically highly integrated machines – which is novel in terms of data flow – the time required to produce a textured surface with resolutions in the micrometer range was reduced by a factor of three compared to the state of the art. The sequential use of an ultrashort pulse laser for structuring, cleaning and polishing creates a photonic process chain that helps to reduce post processing and generate specific polishing effects.

Supported by:                                      Project Sponsor: