A model for self-defocusing in laser drilling of polymeric materials

A numerical thermal model is presented for laser microvias drilling in multilayer electronic substrates with Nd:YAG (YAG denotes yttrium aluminum garnet) and CO(2) lasers. Such substrates have different optical properties such as the refractive index and absorption coefficient at these two laser wavelengths, resulting in different drilling mechanisms. Since the skin depth of the polymer is large for both the lasers, volumetric heating is considered in the model. As soon as a small cavity is formed during the drilling process, the concave curvature of the drilling front acts as a concave lens that diverges the incident laser beam. This self-defocusing effect can greatly reduce the drilling speed as predicted by the model. This effect makes the refractive index of the substrate at different wavelengths an important parameter for laser drilling. The model was used to calculate the laser ablation thresholds which were found to be 8 and 56 J/cm(2) for the CO(2) and Nd:YAG lasers respectively. Due to the expulsion of materials because of high internal pressures in the case of Nd:YAG laser microvia drilling, the ablation threshold may be far below the calculated value. A particular laser beam shape, such as pitch fork, was found to drill better holes than the Gaussian beam. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.