Prediction of Thermal Damage upon Ultrafast Laser Ablation of Metals

• Published in: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 26; no. 21; p. 6327
• Main Authors: Cangueiro, Liliana, Ramos-de-Campos, José Antonio, Bruneel, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 20.10.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Ablation; Exact solutions; femtosecond laser; Fluence; Heat; heat accumulation; Heat distribution; Heat transfer; Laser ablation; Laser damage; Laser machining; Lasers; Material properties; Metals; Micromachining; Process parameters; Radiation; Surface properties; Temperature effects; Thermal energy; ultrafast laser processing; Ultrafast lasers
• ISSN: 1420-3049; 1420-3049
• DOI: 10.3390/molecules26216327

Ultrafast lasers micromachining results depend on both the processing parameters and the material properties. The obtained thermal effects are negligible if a good combination of processing parameters is chosen. However, optimizing the processing parameters leading to the required surface quality on a given material can be quite complex and time consuming. We developed a semi-empirical model to estimate the heat accumulation on a surface as a function of the laser fluence, scanning speed and repetition rate. The simulation results were correlated with experimental ones on different materials, and compared with the transient temperature distributions calculated using an analytical solution to the heat transfer equation. The predictions of the proposed model allow evaluating the heat distribution on the surface, as well as optimizing the ultrafast laser micromachining strategy, yielding negligible thermal damage.