Ablation dynamics and shock wave expansion during laser processing of CFRP with ultrashort laser pulses

Carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) have a large potential in the automotive lightweight construction due to their low density and high mechanical stability. Compared with today's laser processing methods of metals the main issues in laser processing of CFRP are the very differing thermal, optical and mechanical properties of the components. To understand the process in detail, the ablation process of CFRP with ultrashort laser pulses was investigated. The shock wave and the vapor resulting from processing with single laser pulses were recorded. Shadow photography and luminescence photography with an ultra-high-speed camera was used to show the ablation process with a temporary resolution of up to 3 ns. The field of view was 250 mu m x 250 mu m. An ultrashort laser pulse with pulse duration of 4 ps and a wavelength of 800 nm was focused onto the workpiece. The energy content of the shock wave was calculated from the resulting images. The energy content of the shock wave was about 20 % of the incident energy and the speed of propagation of the shock wave was more than 2000 m/s. The high intensities in the range of 10(13) W/cm(2) lead to formation of a plasma plume which was clearly seen in the shadow photography images.