Effect of laser plasma on Nd:YAG laser drilling of acrylic plate with high optical density

Abstract

Laser material processing (LMP) is used to replace traditional material processing techniques, such as material cutting, thin plate drilling, and surface processing. When a high-energy laser is projected onto a material, the temperature of the material increases rapidly, changing the characteristics of the material and making the material on the surface vaporize and peel off instantly. In this study, we developed a laser system using a Quantel Brilliant neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) with a wavelength of 1064 nm laser a pulse width of 5–6 ns, a beam diameter of the 6 mm, and 10 repetition rate (Hz) on the energy stability is within 5.60%, an F-theta lens is used to obtain a focused laser beam with a diameter of 0.2 mm. The developed system was employed to drill holes in a 3-mm-thick optical-grade acrylic polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) plate with high optical density and 7 + safe windows. A laser-safe, flat-window, visible-light-transmitting (VLT) sample was used, and the material to be drilled was a PMMA plate. The laser beam must be focused on the center of the F-theta lens and must be aligned with the distance between the F-theta lens and the linear stage. The working distance was set to 300 mm. Furthermore, the diameter was adjusted to obtain the laser plasma effect; that is, the working distance was fixed. First, the characteristics of the laser plasma and the ability of the laser to penetrate optical-grade acrylic (PMMA) plates samples were studied. By changing the lifting position of the vertical axis and varying the working distance of the acrylic (PMMA) plates, the laser beam was targeted at different positions on the acrylic (PMMA) plates. To determine the optimal parameters for the drilling process, a pulsed laser output of 174.7 mJ/pulse (3000 pulses in 5 min) was focused on the hole. Results showed that the energy was 522.98 J/cm2; a laser energy density of 141.26–275.93 J/cm2 resulted in an acceptable heat-affected zone. The Nd:YAG pulsed laser can produce laser plasma that can increase the hole diameter by up to 50% because of the produced cavity gap. Various exit and entrance hole shapes can be achieved and thus employed for different applications, such as laser beam cutting.