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8:30am 9:15am (Invited)

TuA1

ADVANCED LASER PROCESSING OF METALS

Jyoti Mazumder
Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering
Center For Laser Aided Materials Processing
University Of Illinois
1206 West Green Street, Urbana, IL-61801, U.S.A..

Abstract
The application of lasers span the entire commercial and industrial scene starting
from the CD player at home to welding in automobile and aircraft plants. The CD player
e
uses tiny mm) diode lasers, whereas 5 kW to 45 kW CO2 laser used in industrial
welding application have footprints of tens of square meters. Processes such as welding
and cutting of components in order of meters, drillingdimensions of mm to p s are widely
accepted in manufacturingfloor. Heat treatment is closely behind. The future application in
manufacturing include: nano-meter size powder generation by laser ablation; Angstrom to
micron size deposition by Laser Chemical Vapor Deposition (LCVD);mm scale coating by
laser cladding; and surface modification and meter scale components by direct metal
deposition. The laser is a tool which can provide energy density varying from 10-3
watts/cm2 to 1012 watts/cm2. They have a wavelength range varying from UV e193 nm)
to far infrared (10.6 pm). Recently, high brightness lasers has created new excitement for
laser processing community. This inertialess tool of optical energy has the potential of
starting a new era the way steam energy started the industrial revolution in the 19th century
The preferred approach for successful process development is to apply "atomic level
understanding to applications". This paper discusses the science base for many of the
important laser processing techniques. Emission, absorption and Laser Induced
Fluorescence(LIF) spectroscopy have been applied for studying interaction physics
whereas transport models are used for quantitative understanding of effects of process
parameters on the materials. Electron optical techniques are applied to characterize the
processed materials and whenever possible effort has been made to establish structure-
property-process-parametersrelationship.

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 PAPER SUMMARY

Laser processing covers a wide range of power (-up to 1012 watts/cm2), interaction
time (seconds to picosecond) and process materials with lengthscale nano-meters to meters
Therefore, developing a science base is challenging. Although, often research is application
driven, basic understanding of the process often requires in depth knowledge in
mathematical modeling of the process and on-line process diagnostics.
Process modeling is rather challenging since several transport phenomena occur
simultaneously in laser processing, depending on the intensity of the incident laser beam and
the laser-materials interaction time, as shown in Fig. 1. For example, in laser surface
hardening where the power density level is on the order of 103 to 104 Wlcm2, heat transfer
plays the most important role with mass transfer, determining the limits of dwell time
required for phase transformation. In surface melting (or melt quenching) and welding
where the power density level is on the order of 105 to 107 W/cm2, momentum transfer or
convection is significant. Convection also dominates the process of laser surface alloying and
cladding (power density is on the order of 105 and 106 Wlcm2) along with mass transport,
which determines the nonequilibrium microstructure and composition of the solidified
materials. Vaporization and plasma formation also are important in determining the surface
contour, energy partitioning, and deep penetration in welding. However, vaporization and
gas dynamical effect become predominant in laser processing when the power density is
achievable with high brightness lasers, such as face-pumped YAG laser. Figure 1
summarizes the associated transport phenomena in various laser processes. It is evident that
convection affects a large number of laser processes, and thus attention to the unsteady flow
in melt dynamics is important for an understanding of laser processing. Also, the effects of
high brightness lasers during materials processing, and the interaction between the laser
beam and plasma are essential to gain a complete understanding of the laser-materials
interactions. It is especially important now that a national team lead by TRW will design and
build high brightness YAG laser for manufacturing application.

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Interact ion Time sec

Figure 1 Operational regimes and associated transport

phenomena for various processing techniques

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 When a high brightness laser, such as face-pumped YAG laser, is focused on the surface of a
solid target, a fraction of the laser energy is absorbed by the target material. This heats up
the material to produce liquid and vapor. During rapid vaporization, the temperature,
density, and pressure become discontinuous across a narrow region of thickness with a few
mean free paths, called Knudsen layer where the continuum hypothesis is not valid.
Development of real-time optical, acoustic, and electronic sensors for on-line process
monitoring is key to the development of advanced processing techniques. The development
of control strategies that couple on-line sensor measurements with sophisticated computer
models of the laser aided material processing technique is especially promising. Several
techniques to monitor the laser beam have been reported by Beyer and Abels (Industrial
Laser Review, Dec. 1993).
Optical techniques are promising both in terms of diagnostics for fundamental studies
of the laser-material interaction and as the basis of sensors for real-time process control.
Potential optical diagnostic techniques include emission spectroscopy, laser-absorption
spectroscopy, laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy, coherent anti-Stokes Raman
scattering (CARS) spectroscopy, degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) spectroscopy and
Rayleigh scattering. In emission spectroscopy, the radiation emitted by excited state species
present in the gas or plasma in the laser-material interaction zone is detected in a spectrally
resolved manner. The intensity of the light detected at a characteristic frequency for a
particular molecule or atom is a qualitative indication of its total number density. In a laser
absorption measurement, a tunable laser beam is passed through the gas or plasma. The
laser frequency is tuned over a molecular resonance and the integrated absorption is a
measure of the path-integrated total number density for the species of interest. Laser-
induced fluorescence is a spatially resolved technique where molecules are driven from the
ground state to an excited state by laser absorption, and fluorescent emission from the laser-
excited states is detected as a measure of total number density. Both laser absorption and LIF
can also be used to measure temperature. Coherent wave-mixing detection techniques,
where the signal is emitted as a laser-like beam, include CARS for temperature and major
species concentration measurement, and DFWM for minor species concentration
measurement. Rayleigh Scattering produces a signal that is non-resonant and strongly (4th
power) and dependent on the size of the scattering particles and could thus be used to
monitor the abundance of clusters in the cooling vapor/plasma.
Many of these optical techniques have been developed and applied successfully in the
field of combustion. Application of these same types of techniques in laser-aided materials
processing will enhance significantly our fundamental understanding of the laser-material
interaction. While the species of interest for laser-material interactions will differ in general
from those of interest in a combustion medium, the experience gained from applying these
'
techniques in a hostile combustion environment is invaluable for diagnostic studies of laser-
aided materials processing.
Acoustic diagnostics offer the potential of providing real-time sensing of defect
formation during laser-aided material processing. Acoustic emission signals are stress waves
generated defects as they occur in the material.
Advanced optical diagnostics will provide spatially and temporally resolved
measurements of surface and gas-phase properties in laser-material interaction zone. The
application of advanced optical diagnostics should be closely coupled with the laser-material
interaction modeling. The increased fundamental understanding of the key process variables
that results from the coupled modeling-diagnostic effort can be used to guide the
development of real-time sensors for process control. This paper describes some of the recent
advances in modeling and measurement techniques for laser processing of metals.

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