Investigation of laser-induced material removal of stainless steel at the super-micron level

There has been a good deal of research conducted regarding laser machining at the micron level and below, however the feasibility of scaling laser-induced material removal processes to the super-micron level with regard to cost and quality has not been thoroughly investigated. The experimental results of laser-induced material removal of stainless steel by pulsed CO₂ and Q-switched Nd:YAG lasers are presented. Experiments include the machining of channels of 0.8 mm width by 0.8 mm depth using a 2 kW CO₂ laser. The effects of assist gas type, assist gas direction relative to beam motion, beam mode, and multiple parameter processing are discussed. Material removal by drilling with a 10 W (average power) Q-switched Nd:YAG laser is also explored through experiments designed to test the scalability of processing parameters for a range of hole sizes. The results should be useful for analyzing material removal for features at the super-micron level.