Laser ablation of CFRP using picosecond laser pulses at different wavelengths from UV to IR

Laser processing of carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) has a great industrial relevance for high performance structural parts in airplanes, machine tools and cars. Through-holes drilled by nanosecond laser pulses show thermal induced molten layers and voids. Recently, picosecond lasers have demonstrated the ability to drill high-efficient and high-quality rivet through-holes. In this paper a high-power picosecond laser system operating at different wavelengths (355 nm, 532 nm and 1064 nm) has been used for CFRP ablation experiments to study the influence of different laser parameters in terms of machining quality and processing time.