Thin wires are produced by drawing through nozzle-like tools, so called dies, that suffer from strong wear due to friction. In order to avoid the latter disadvantage the dies can be replaced by a laser beam heating the wire to such extend that the yield strength becomes smaller than the tensile strength and thus the wire is elongated and consequently constricted. To avoid rupture, the wire is cooled down again after the desired reduction of the diameter is reached. A further important advantage of this new process is that only one drawing step with a laser can substitute a large number of mechanical drawing actions, thus making the process much more efficient. Theoretical considerations and experimental investigations prove the feasibility of the latter new laser process and are subject to a description in the actual paper.
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