Glass processing with pulsed CO_2 laser radiation

Recent results of processing fused silica using a high-power $Q$-switched ${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ laser source with a maximum output power of 200 W are presented. Compared to the processing with continuous wave laser radiation, the main advantage of pulsed laser radiation is the influence of the light–matter interaction with high laser peak power at small average laser power. An application for the approach presented in this paper is the flexible manufacturing and form correction of optics. This laser-based process is nearly independent of the surface geometry and can even be enhanced by laser polishing and expanded to other glass materials. Hence, the high-power $Q$-switched ${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ laser source is used to ablate glass material with an ablation rate up to $2.35{\mathrm{mm}}^3/\mathrm{s}$ and also for ablating glass material locally in a vertical dimension down to 3 nm.