An Ablation Parameter Study and Micromachining of NiTi Based Shape Memory Alloy Using Femtosecond Laser

The use of femtosecond lasers for the micromachining of engineering materials with micro and submicron size features is slowly but steadily increasing. This increase though presents challenges in understanding the interaction mechanism of femtosecond laser pulses with a material and defining process parameters for quality machining. This manuscript will present the setup for a 3DOF femtosecond laser microfabrication (FLM) system and its use in studying the ablation (single and multi shot) characteristics and incubation coefficient of nickel-titanium (NiTi) shape memory alloy. Understanding of these characteristics could allow for the identification of new applications of smart materials in the macro, micro, nano and MEMS domains.Copyright © 2007 by ASME