What is laser ablation?
Laser ablation is a process for removing material from a solid surface by irradiating it with a laser beam. At low laser flux, the material is heated by the absorbed laser energy causing the surface of the material to evaporate or sublimate. At high laser flux, the material is typically converted to plasma. The depth over which laser energy is absorbed, and thus the amount of material removed by a single laser pulse depends on the material’s optical properties and the laser wavelength used. Laser pulses can vary over a very wide range of duration (milliseconds to femtoseconds), and fluxes – and can be precisely controlled. This makes laser ablation attractive for a number of research and industrial applications – and the process has many advantages: • No solvents are used, so the process is environmentally friendly and operators are not exposed to chemicals. • The process is relatively easy to automate. • The running costs are lower than dry media, etching or CO2 ice blasting • The pro
