Ablation efficiency at high repetition rate of short laser pulses

The laser microdrilling of steel samples by nanosecond single pulses and pulse trains was compared in wide range of repetition rates (up to 200 kHz). It was found that drilling by the short trains, or just by pairs of pulses can be more effective compared to conventional pico- and nanosecond (100ps÷100ns) laser processing in vacuum or drilling using ultra-high repetition rate lasers.© (2007) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.