OPTIMIZATION OF FEMTOSECOND LASER CUTTING PROCESS PARAMETERS FOR POLYMER OF VARIOUS THICKNESSES

This research focuses on using femtosecond laser pulses for polymer cutting process optimization. As polymers consist of very large molecules and are sensitive to heat or can easily be damaged, cutting technique with ultrashort pulse lasers could heavily influence wider application in the future. Polymers are getting more and more attention as a versatile material for biomedical, micro-optics and other applications where specific polymer properties are needed. During polymer cutting with femtosecond laser pulses better quality can be achieved avoiding heat affected zones (HAZ) due to indirect lattice heating, thus benefiting from “cold” ablation. We demonstrate cutting various thickness polyamide (PI), polyethylene (PET) and polycarbonate (PC) films. During experiments laser parameters such as pulse repetition rate, average power and pulse overlap were optimized to achieve high-quality cuts and avoid HAZ. As a result, process parameters were optimized for each polymer cutting with ultrashort pulse laser.