State of the Art on Fiber Laser Micromachining in Coronary Stent Cutting

Abstract

Recent trends in technological advancement lead to the miniaturization of components in order to minimize the energy and materials used in manufacturing and also to improve accuracy and reliability. That is why advanced micromachining processes come into the picture. Micromachining can be classified into two categories such as generation of micro features on macro or meso range components and also production of micro components by removal of material at micro or nano level. There are various advanced micromachining processes like “micro electrochemical machining (μECM), micro electrical discharge machining (μEDM), micro laser beam machining (μLBM), micro ultrasonic machining (μUSM)â€, etc. These processes find their applications in various industries like aerospace, biomedical, automobile, electronics, etc. But this paper particularly focuses on the applications of fiber laser micromachining in coronary stent cutting. There are various materials like stainless steel, Magnesium alloy, Nitinol, etc. that are being used to manufacture coronary stents and nowadays various biopolymers have found their ways in this field because of their biocompatible nature. Although there are several methods available to process these materials but nowadays fiber laser machining is appearing to be more preferable option for this purpose because of its high speed, extraordinary precision, low maintenance cost and better reliability. In this paper, recent trends and previous works done by various researchers in fiber laser micromachining on different materials in stent cutting have been summarized.