DCU Researchers Win Top International Paper Prize
Tuesday 13 November 2007

Joe Woodford (Academic Liaison, National Instruments), Dermot Brabazon (DCU), Ahmed Issa (DCU), Ajit Gokhale (Managing Director, National Instrumetns), Sarah Byrne (Technical Support, National Instruments)

DCU laser micromachining researchers won top application prize recently for their published paper on laser micromachining. Over the last five years Dr. Dermot Brabazon, Dr. Ahmed Issa and Prof. Saleem Hashmi have developed two laser micromachining processes which allow for the production of channels and voxels with highly repeatable micrometer level resolution. Devices fabricated with this developed technology can be used for applications such as microfluidic lab on a chip, strain measurement, sub-micrometer cooling systems and various photonic guiding systems. The paper was entitled, Laser System Automation using LabVIEW and PCI E-Series Board for 3D Internal Micromachining. This work illustrated the sophisticated automated 3D Nd:YVO4 and CO2 laser micro fabrication facilities that were developed. In order to achieve the precise control, CAD processing, laser firing, 3D sample movement and thermal field modelling software were developed. In addition, in order to characterise the high efficiency achieved from these processes, an in house built automated channel and voxel profiler was used. This prize was given by National Instruments at the NI Days event in London which was held in the Institution of Engineering and technology (IET) on the 25th October 2007. The prize included flight and accommodation to NI Week in Austin, TX, next year, a plaque and LEGO Mindstorms NXT.