Batch production of features typically from 200 microns down to only a few microns in material <1mm thick can be done with high speed lasers, from a few parts/month to 1000s/week.

Batch production of features typically from 200 microns down to only a few microns in material <1mm thick. Facilities are available for development of process, optimisation of process or batches, from a few parts per month to many thousands of parts per week, all produced with equal care and precision. By using the latest high speed laser technology and a team of specialist engineers, Oxford Lasers can offer cost effective sub-contract micro machining services for medical, semiconductor, microelectronic, NDT, pharmaceutical and many other applications.

Oxford Lasers' three fully equipped micro machining Applications Laboratories give customers the benefit of infrared, visible and UV lasers with multi-axis part manipulation.

Trepanning heads, optical and electron microscopes, vision systems for part location, and CAD/CAM file conversion are all available for use in drilling, milling, cutting and scribing processes.

For example Oxford Lasers developed a new, fast and highly precise method of producing capillary reservoir pins for use in micro-arrays.

The narrow kerf of laser micro machining makes it possible to fabricate these tungsten pins featuring a 10 micron wide capillary slot leading to a reservoir 1000 microns long and 100 microns wide.

Not only is laser machining the only way to achieve this and more complex geometries but its high speed capability is 10-20 times faster than any other processing, making it more economical for high volume production.

As well as tungsten, Oxford Lasers Applications Laboratories can process steel and most other metals, silicon, diamond, ceramics (including alumina, zirconia and silicon nitride), sapphire, silicon carbide, silica, glass, polymers and other transmissive materials.