The automotive industry is currently advancing two main battery technologies: Li-ion NMC for high-end vehicles, and LFP for the broader adoption of electric vehicles thanks to its lower manufacturing cost. Solid-state batteries are also approaching industrial adoption and offer strong potential, although significant manufacturing challenges remain.

Lasers are already widely used in battery manufacturing, mainly continuous-wave and nanosecond pulsed lasers, due to their high available power, high throughput, and relatively low cost of ownership. Ultrafast lasers, which provide superior cutting performance, can now deliver pulses in the GHz burst regime, significantly increasing ablation efficiency. This allows the same throughput to be achieved with lower average power, thereby reducing the cost of adopting this technology.

With their unmatched processing quality and material-selective ablation capabilities, ultrafast lasers are emerging as a key tool for next-generation battery manufacturing.

In this study, we compare the ablation efficiency, cutting speed, and process quality of femtosecond slitting of LFP, NMC, Li-metal, and several compounds used in next-generation batteries using three regimes: single pulse, MHz burst, and GHz burst.

Cutting speed improvements of 2 to 4X are demonstrated for LFP and NMC when using GHz burst compared with MHz burst or single-pulse ablation. Initial results on solid-state battery materials are also presented, evaluated across different fluence levels and ablation regimes.