The present generation of industrial ultraviolet light (UV) excimer lasers are being used in a growing number of demanding production and prototype application work that had previously been beyond the capabilities of such thermal sources as CO2, operating at 10.6 μm, or Nd:YAG and Nd:Glass, operating at 1.06 μm range. The high photon energy and the very short duration of the excimer pulses can efficiently initiate photochemical and/or photothermal surface reactions leading to precision micromachining, indelible marking, and microstructure modification.
