Thin water film assisted glass ablation with a picosecond laser

Ultrashort lasers have become a promising tool for fast and high quality cutting of glasses. However, growing industry constantly seek for higher production throughput maintaining excellent process quality. In most cases, glass processing speed is limited to avoid clogging the laser-ablated channel, minimize crack generation, and heat accumulation effects in the glass material. Studies have shown that the introduced water layer onto the surface of the workpiece can significantly improve laser throughput and processing quality. This paper investigates laser ablation of soda-lime glass sheets in ambient air and water-assisted conditions. Glass cutting and single scan groove ablation were investigated in spite of ablation efficiency and scribe morphology. A 532 nm laser working at 100 kHz repetition rate was utilized in the experiments. Results showed that the applied thin flowing water film on the sample's surface improved the glass ablation efficiency by 12 times.