Laser materials processing with ultra-short pulses allows very precise and high quality results with a minimum extent of the thermally affected zone. However, with increasing average laser power and repetition rates the so-called heat accumulation effect becomes a considerable issue. The following discussion presents a comprehensive analytical treatment of multi-pulse processing and reveals the basic mechanisms of heat accumulation and its consequence for the resulting processing quality. The theoretical findings can explain the experimental results achieved when drilling microholes in CrNi-steel and for cutting of CFRP. As a consequence of the presented considerations, an estimate for the maximum applicable average power for ultra-shorts pulsed laser materials processing for a given pulse repetition rate is derived.

The polarization state of a laser beam has a strong influence on the process in almost any kind of laser material processing. The benefit of material processing with cylindrical polarization was described by several authors. Recently, intra-cavity polarization generation and extracavity polarization conversion for industry-level high-power lasers were presented. The present paper gives an overview over the state of the art and the latest results for cutting, welding and drilling achieved at the IFSW of the University of Stuttgart

Short-pulse lasers allow processing of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) with very high quality, i.e. showing thermal damage in the range of only a few micrometers. Due to the usually high intensities and the short interaction times of such short pulses, only a small fraction of the incident laser energy is converted to residual heat which does not contribute to the ablation process. However, if the next pulse arrives before the material had time to cool down, i.e. this residual thermal energy did not sufficiently flow out of the interaction region, it encounters material which is still hot. This remaining energy and temperature is summing up during the sequence of pulses and is commonly referred to as “heat accumulation”. Thermal damage in addition to the damage created by the process itself is induced, if the resulting temperature sum exceeds the damage temperatures of either the fibre or the plastic.The current paper presents the influence of the laser parameters such as pulse energy and repetition rate on this heat accumulation. An analytical model was used to describe the heat accumulation for different laser parameters. It describes the heat accumulation process and allows estimating the maximum number of pulses allowed at the same place before a detrimental temperature increase occurs

Deep multipass cutting of bidirectional and unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) with picosecond laser pulses was investigated in different static atmospheres as well as with the assistance of an oxygen or nitrogen gas flow. The ablation rate was determined as a function of the kerf depth and the resulting heat affected zone was measured. An assisting oxygen gas flow is found to significantly increase the cutting productivity, but only in deep kerfs where the diminished evaporative ablation due to the reduced laser fluence reaching the bottom of the kerf does not dominate the contribution of reactive etching anymore. Oxygen-supported cutting was shown to also solve the problem that occurs when cutting the CFRP parallel to the fiber orientation where a strong deformation and widening of the kerf, which temporarily slows down the process speed, is revealed to be typical for processing in standard air atmospheres.