Applications pulsed lasers

Depending on your application you can already make a rough laser source selection, but this is no garanty on the final result. It is important to look at the complete system : laser source, collimator, scanner system and the final focus lens.

Every application comes down on the question how much pulse energy do we need to get the

right surface effect.In this case we rather like to use the energy density. A 9 mm beam can be focussed on a 60 micrometer spot and if we know pulse energy we can calculate the mJ/ cm2 .

The flux of optical laser energy towards a steel surface can create melting if we are exceeding the material threshold value.

Application guide lines.

1.Organic coating on copper

Organic coatings demand mostly longer pulse duration because the coating is not well transferring the energy in the material,unless you have a transparent coating when the infrared laser beam can go trough the film and being absorbed in the oxide layer of the base material or the base material itself. In this case you need less pulse energy.

Copper is highly reflective and so the base material is difficult to clean , if you want to structure the copper surface you need high quality beam lasers to overcome the high reflectivity and to achieve high surface pulse density. Seen the fact copper is a good heath conductor the pulse duration is less important, but from 150ns pulse durations you will re oxidize the copper surface.

Above left we see how copper looks like after being aggressively structured (oxide removal) without reoxidation due to the right pulse duration and energy fluence.

On the right we have steel mold cleaning which requires less density.

2.Structuring/removing hard coatings

Structuring a surface or removing a hard anodisation layer or a nickle coating demand high energy density.This can be done with lasers from 100,200 and 300 watt. If you need to treat more surface you will need 1000 watt.We prefer high beam quality and pulse energy ranging between 1 and 12 mJ.