In three chapters the past, presence and future of the laser ablation are represented.
Briefly the different erosion principles are described with their advantages and disadvantages. This contains the laser melting erosion with high-speed gas nozzles, the laser reactive ablation and the evaporation erosion. The erosion rate, the attainable surface roughness and shape accuracy are compared.
The physical interaction of the evaporation erosion, the treatment strategies and the necessary sensor technology and controlling are described in detail. The applied aggregates are q-switched YAG lasers, that is why the influence of the mean pulse power and the pulse frequency on the erosion quality are discussed. The treatment strategies which enable to achieve a very high shape accuracy are illustrated, e.g. the production of perpendicular walls.
Finally the future possibilities of manufacturing more economically in microtooling are shown, e.g. combination of HSC milling and laser ablation (with a spot diameter <10 um).