Water-supported femtosecond laser ablation of Nitinol for cardiovascular stents

Water-supported femtosecond laser ablation of Nitinol for cardiovascular stents

Blog Article

Nitinol became one of the most prominent materials for biomedical Dust Bag Holder devices.The unique properties such as the shape memory effect and the superelasticity enabled new applications, particularly in the field of stent technologies.Due to their thermosensitivity, manufacturing processes are required that control the heat accumulation in the material.

Here we investigate the femtosecond laser ablation of Nitinol supported by a water flow inside the processed tube.We show that laser absorption in the water prevents annealing of the Nitinol, even for high pulse energies.Furthermore, we investigate the groove profiles by scanning electron microscopy and observe minor improvements in the processed structure when using water flow inside the tube.

The results show that Vacuum PowerBrush™ Kit water-supported femtosecond laser ablation can be used to optimize the fabrication of medical devices such as cardiovascular stents and to reduce processing times.