Image courtesy Miyachi Unitek Corp.


Laser Technology


Lasers


Cut Medical Devices with Precision, Speed


The latest developments in short-pulse and fiber lasers offer new ways to create today’s innovative medical devices


Patrick Waurzyniak Senior Editor


The multiaxis Sigma Laser Tube Cutter fiber system from Miyachi Unitek offers users flexible, noncontact cutting of small tubes for medical device components.


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asers cut, weld and mark the metal alloys and polymers used to build the latest medical implant breakthroughs, surgical instruments, and other related medical products. Many key characteristics of today’s lasers make the devices ideal for use in medical applications such as cutting stents and endoscopes, pacemaker components and other medical components. Laser cutting processes offer many advantages, including being a noncontact method of cutting that has minimal thermal input into the workpiece while delivering extremely precise spot sizes, or tool widths, on compo- nents requiring high precision and high quality. Lasers are used to process a wide range of materials from stainless


May 2012 | www.sme.org/manufacturingengineering 69


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