Why should copper foil, a highly reflective metal, be cut with UV laser?

Pure copper and brass are highly reflective metal materials with extremely low absorption rates for visible wavelength lasers. At the same time, they have good thermal conductivity, and the absorbed heat quickly diffuses to the surrounding area of the processing area, affecting the processing quality. Therefore, laser cutting of copper has always been a challenge that the industry should overcome.

Pure copper/red copper, as a highly reflective material, basically cannot be cut with a CO2 laser beam. Although the cutting effect of copper in optical fiber communication laser cutting is good, copper is a highly reflective material. Therefore, the long-term effect of laser in these materials may affect its service life, resulting in poor subsequent processing effects and increased use of consumables.

The difficulty of laser cutting copper foil is that there is no carbonization and burrs on the cutting edge, and the copper foil will not be deformed, so as to achieve roll-to-roll processing mode. Using traditional laser cutting machines, such as fiber laser cutting machines, has a large thermal impact and lower precision than UV laser cutting machines, and the edge carbonization is serious. The edge heat impact will cause the copper foil to warp and deform. The processing mode of the UV laser cutting machine is vibrating mirror scanning, the bottom is vacuum adsorption, and the cold light source reduces the thermal impact, which can perfectly cut the copper foil.