Experimental investigation of 355nm Nd:YAG laser ablation of RCC^R in PCB

Diameter and depth of craters and removing efficiency of the material of RCC^R (resin coated copper) used in PCB by a single pulse energy of 355nm YAG laser with a variety of pulse energy, pulse width and defocus have been studied in the paper. It is shown that the ablation rates per pulse are much higher when compared with those at 248nm. The crater diameter increases monotonically with the pulse energy. However, when the pulse energy is very high and the power density is higher than 4.0 × 10⁹W/cm², the crater depth and removing efficiency decrease with the increase of pulse energy. The pulse width has an important influence on the crater diameter and volume when the pulse width changes from 24ns to 38ns, whereas the influence on the crater depth is little. The influences of defocus on ablation results depend on the power density of laser beam. A certain defocus can make both crater diameter and removing efficiency increase for a relatively high power density. Meanwhile, the thermal effect in the process of 355nm laser ablation of RCC^R cannot be neglected.