Laser applications, materials and sensors
Lasers have been serving our activity since the 80’s, with in-house development of Nd:YAG and CO2 lasers for mastering the technology. Since the 90’s, we focused on the development of laser applications for non-metallic and soft materials processing, in which the laser is the metrological tool or the source of energy.
A particular broader field has being developed recently, with the laser as a tool in the research of light propagation and interaction with the media. In addition to materials processing, space and defence related issues, new studies are being conducted in order to develop new methods to comply with non-uniformity and/or natural dynamics and light modulation of physical properties related with biomedical field.
The application of optical methods based on light scattering has being developed in the scope of particles and fluid dynamic analysis.
Scattering Diffraction Tomography methodologies are being developed in order to reduce the detectable range.
Laser processing of materials has been applied, among others, to wood sheets for inlays production, natural stone for cutting and drilling and polymeric materials, for cutting and welding and wood and plastic for marking and decoration.
Laser microprocessing is also an expanding application area, using the Q-Switched Nd:YAG laser and its harmonics, as well as fibre lasers.
We provide solutions to the equipment manufacture industry, with various levels of integration, in order to comply with customer specifications and needs. Very often lasers, image processing techniques are combined to provide the information our industrial partner requires. All these activities are accompanied by laser beam characterisation and shaping, and supported by dedicated models …
Small series of equipments were delivered to Portuguese companies dedicated to specific niches on cutting, marking and engraving for different materials like plastics, wood, cork, stone, textiles and others.
In the area of laser cleaning, we are developing solutions for the cleaning of steel (for the micro-mould industry) and precious metals (for Mint organizations) in addition to ceramics and stone.
Cultural Heritage is also an application field for lasers, not only in the field of laser cleaning of stone and metallic artworks and museologic objects, but also in the area of digitalisation by laser scanning for documentation, monitoring and replica production of artworks.
In the field of laser interaction with glass, studies are being developed in the area of localized colour changes induced by laser in glass and other dielectrics. Thermal relaxation and multi-photonic effects are being prospected with the objective to develop new applications in the fields of photonics, security and art.
More recently, in partnership with INESC-N, we have been focusing in the development of laser techniques forprocessing silica fibre optics, in order to produce Bragg gratings for fibre sensors (strain, temperature, index of refraction), by ablation or index change. In this area, an innovative approach is based on interferometric patterns in order to produce the gratings directly, without any movement of the laser beam or fibre. Research is being based on mid-infrared interferometric techniques.
In the field of biomedical research and in cooperation with IBEB, studies are being made for concentrating light inside turbid biological media targeted to the field of phototherapy by thermal activation and destruction of cancer cells. Methodologies are being studied in order to complement existing medical techniques (mainly in tumour research) with new optical applications.