Pulsed Laser Processing of Paper Materials

At present the trends in paper and packaging industries are the personalization of products and the use of novel high-tech materials. Laser processes as non-contact and flexible techniques seem to be the obvious choice to address those developments. In this paper we present a basic understanding of the occurring mechanisms of laser based engraving of different paper and paperboard materials, using a picosecond laser source at 1064 nm. The influences on the beam-paper-interaction of grammage, the composition of the paper matrix, as well as the paper inherent cellulose fibers were investigated. Here the ablation threshold of commercially available paper was determined and a matrix ablation effect under the 1064 nm radiation observed. These results were characterized and qualified mainly by means of laser scanning microscope (LSM) micrographs in combination with color-space analytics.