Article Abstracts | March 2008
The complete article appears in the March 2008 issue of Photonics Spectra. If you do not have a copy of this issue,
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Saving Money with Laser Processing
Rapid laser patterning offers many advantages for manufacturing flat panel displays.
by Matt Henry, Powerlase Ltd.
Flat panel displays are one of the great modern engineering success stories. They are everywhere — in mobile phones, public displays and even sports arenas. In fact, even now there is a fair chance that you use them every day at home, at work or both.
Patterning of thin films — that is, removal of parts of a thin film to create a desired pattern in the material that is left behind — is a crucial step in the manufacture of these displays. We have conducted extensive measurements comparing the conventional technique, chemical etching (i.e., lithography), with laser-based removal. These tests convince us that, in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars can be saved by substituting laser patterning for chemical etching in the manufacture of flat panel displays...
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