An experimental investigation into fibre laser micro-drilling of quartz

Abstract

In the present experimental study, percussion micro-drilling on quartz is carried out by Ytterbium (Yb3+) doped 50 W fibre laser system in order to find out the effects of various process parameters such as laser power, pulse frequency, duty cycle and assist air pressure (process parameters) on the response criteria, i.e., taper angle, circularity for the entrance holes and heat affected zone (HAZ) thickness. The larger and smaller diameters of the micro-holes at the entry side are measured as 124.13 µm and 68.17 µm respectively, whereas the larger and smaller diameters of micro-holes in exit side are 111.65 µm and 58.88 µm respectively. The smaller value of the taper angle (θ) is found at 0.187° along with the smaller HAZ thickness of 16.10 µm at the entry side. In addition to this, greater entrance hole circularity is measured as 0.938 during fibre laser percussion micro-drilling on quartz materials.