Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Ken Muneyuki

Izuru Nakai

Kenji Kasai

Akira Wada

Tomohiro Gawa

Haruhiro Yuki

Akiko Nakamura

Masahiro Kawata

Souji Yamamoto

Toshiharu Okada

In a laser processing apparatus including a laser oscillator for emitting laser light onto a workpiece through an f&thgr; lens for drilling a hole in the workpiece, a wavelength selector for passing only a light ray having a specific wavelength is disposed between the laser oscillator and the workpiece.

Laser processing apparatus and method

In a laser processing apparatus, laser beams are respectively focused and irradiated by focusing devices onto a work being processed, thereby performing laser processing in processing areas B within predetermined ranges on the work. An adjustment member is provided for automatically adjusting an interval C between the center points of the focusing devices in correspondence with the size of an entire processing area A on the work being processed.

A holding member is set, which sucks at a contact face, only a part of the periphery of a process area of a sheet-like article to hold the article. The holding member and the sheet-like article are moved relatively in such manner that the contact face is not physically in touch with an already processed area while the contact face maintains its suction to the sheet-like article. A deformation of the already processed area or a mixture of foreign articles to the already processed area can be prevented.

Apparatus and method for processing

The two ends of an article to be processed which is in the form of a sheet are held by means of a fixed clamp and a movable clamp, the article being held by applying bias by means of a biasing cylinder to the movable clamp in a direction such as would separate it from the fixed clamp and hole-forming processing being performed by means of a laser beam. Since the sheet-like article is held under tension, flatness of even a thin sheet can be maintained and since the underneath space is open, there is no reflection of laser light after passing through the holes that are formed and any processing waste can easily be removed.

Growing community of inventors

Ibaraki, Japan

Ken Muneyuki