Bulg. J. Phys. 33 (2006) 39–47 High-speed Precise Laser Cutting with Copper Bromide Laser I.I. Balchev 1 , N.I. Minkovski 1 , I.K. Kostadinov 2 , N.V. Sabotinov 1 1 Laboratory of Metal Vapor Lasers, Institute of Solid State Physics, 72 Tzarigradsko Chaussee Blvd., BG-1784 Soﬁa, Bulgaria 2 Pulslight Co., 72 Tzarigradsko Chaussee Blvd., BG-1784 Soﬁa, Bulgaria Received 14 July 2006 Abstract. The application of the copper bromide (CuBr) laser as an attractive tool in the cutting of different materials has been demonstrated. High-quality precision cutting was established on several materials with a negligible heat- affected zone (HAZ). That good performance was a result of the combination of high power visible radiation, short pulses, and close to the diffraction-limited laser beam divergence with high-speed galvo scanner beam steering. PACS number: 42.62.-b 1 Introduction Laser machining can remove material in very small portions while it is not true for the traditional machining. Laser machining processes are said to remove material by atomic layers. For this reason, the kerf in laser cutting is usually very narrow, the depth of laser drilling can be controlled to less than one micron per laser pulse and shallow permanent marks can be made with great ﬂexibility (under ﬂexibility, hereafter we mean generally the shape diversity of laser ma- chining produce). In this way, material can be saved, which may be important for precious materials or for delicate structures in micro-fabrications. That also means small removal rate of laser machining compared to traditional machining. However, laser cutting of sheet material with thickness less than 2 mm can be fast, ﬂexible and of high quality. High power laser are widely used in industrial manufacturing applications such as drilling, cutting, welding and surface processing where typically CO 2 and Nd–YAG systems operating in the infrared part of the spectra are used. However, the laser material interactions in many machining cases are more effective when using lasers operating at shorter wavelengths. For example, micro-machining of 1310–0157 c  2006 Heron Press Ltd. 39