Laser precision drilling 鈥?extremely fast with minimal wear

Laser Precision Drilling 鈥?Extremely Fast with Minimal Wear

Drilling was one of the first material processing processes to use lasers. The first industrial application was the drilling of holes in watches and jewellery. Lasers can be used to drill micro holes in a wide variety of shapes and in almost any material. Whether round or oval, square or star-shaped, there are virtually no limits to the shape of the holes that can be drilled.

In addition to the wide range of possibilities, high precision and repeatability, and extremely fast speeds, laser drilling has another key advantage: lasers work virtually without wear.

Process - Chip-free and Wear-free Drilling

Laser drilling is a non-machining process in which the material is heated, melted and vaporized. The process gas blows the removed material out of the hole.

Pulsed lasers are often used. Their energy input can be adjusted precisely. In addition to a wide variety of shapes, drill holes of varying depths can also be produced. This allows through-holes or blind holes with diameters of less than 5 渭m, whose taper can also be controlled by appropriate laser parameters.

Up to 1,000 holes per second, even in hard-to-reach locations

Hole diameters up to 5 渭m

No wear tools

No post-processing required

Application Case

Applications

Depending on the intended drilling depth, the taper of the hole and the processing speed, the following processes for laser drilling may vary.

With our laser systems and contract manufacturing we can offer you the following processes:

鈼?Single pulse process

鈼?amp;nbsp;Shock pulse

鈼?amp;nbsp;Drilling process

Of course, we will advise you on the best process for laser drilling according to your requirements.

Process Variants

Single-pulse method: As the name suggests, with the single-pulse process, the laser forms a through hole or a blind hole with just one laser pulse. The walls of the resulting hole are usually characterized by a tapered geometry.

Since this process requires high pulse energies, it is mainly used to drill large openings in thin materials.

Typical products drilled using this method are filters or ventilation components.

Shock Pulse: The percussion process does not drill a hole with one laser pulse. Instead, several laser pulses hit the same location of the component in sequence. The high pulse rate melts and evaporates the material layer by layer.

The percussion process allows higher aspect ratios, which means very deep holes and very small diameters. In addition, tapers can be defined very precisely and harder materials can also be machined. However, the process is associated with longer processing times. Percussion drilling is used, for example, for nozzle holes.     

Hole-opening process: Annular drilling is actually a combination of drilling and cutting. Depending on the material and material thickness, individual holes are first created using either a single pulse or a percussion method. The target diameter is then achieved by laser cutting. Depending on the relative movement between the laser beam and the workpiece, a wide range of drilling geometries is possible. Furthermore, annular hole drilling allows different tapers to achieve parallel borehole walls.

Due to the process gas, the molten material is blown out through the exit side of the hole.