Laser cleaving & glass cutting
Glass is often cleaved or cut using Bessel beams. The advantage of using a Bessel beam is the very long depth of focus with an extremely small (2-6um) spot in the middle. Axicons, aspheric axicons, diffractive axicons or reflective axicons can generate Bessel beams. The longer the depth of focus, the more laser pulse energy is needed to exceed the laser induced damage threshold of glass.
Glass cutting and marking is one of the main applications for ultrashort pulse lasers. Orion Laser Tech is revolutionizing glass processing. Check out their website: