Study on new stereo-lithography system with excimer laser

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In this study, we investigated a new type of laser stereo-lithography system with XeCl Excimer laser which wavelength was 308nm. In conventional systems, continuous wave Ar ion (351nm/364nm) and He-Cd (325nm) lasers were used as an ultraviolet (UV) light source, which functioned a small point pattern maker of 0.2mm in diameter. On the other hand, a new system proposed us with excimer laser could dramatically reduce the manufacturing time, because laser output power was high enough and beam size was bigger (10mm x 20mm) compare than the conventional ones. Therefore we also investigated a new technique, how to use the big size and high power excimer laser beam efficiently. Moreover we studied an excimer lamp for a low-cost UV light source.For the laser stereo-lithography, XeCl excimer laser was adapted to improve the utilization efficiency of laser energy. Because of the beam uniformity was made better with a homogenizer, the quantity of hardened resin per laser energy was increased compare than that of without a homogenizer. With this method a simple 3D object was created, and it was proved that XeCl excimer laser was possible to apply for the stereo-lithography.On the other hand, because of its excellent output efficiency, XeCl excimer lamp and N2 laser were one of a candidate of lower-cost stereo-lithography equipment, which allowed down sizing of the power supply and lamp head, and air-cooling. In view of this, attempts were made to develop special design cylindrical tubes with optical fiber system as the UV light source. Consequently, fiber transmission efficiency of excimer lamp was too low because of its high beam divergence. But the N2 laser was good enough to apply for the lower-cost stereo-lithography system.