Patent ID: 7294807

Claim:
A method for producing holes in a workpiece, comprising: directing at least one laser beam at a workpiece, wherein the at least one laser beam includes a short-pulse laser beam or an ultrashort pulse laser beam; producing a hole having a desired conicity, a conicity factor of the hole being variable by optically influencing the laser beam; and supplying at least one process gas to an interactive zone between the laser beam and the workpiece, the process gas containing at least one of helium, oxygen, argon, nitrogen and a mixture thereof; wherein for a desired precision adjustment for increasing or reducing the conicity of the hole, the process gas is supplied to the interaction zone with a pressure in a range from 0.1 bar to 20 bar and a process gas volume flow in a range from approximately 0.8 Nl/min to 270 Nl/min.