Generation of Flat-Top Focussed Beams for Percussion Drilling of Ceramic and Metal D.W.

Coutts Department of Atomic and Laser Physics, University of Oxford Clarendon Laboratory, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PU, UK Tel: 44 1865 272256, FAX 44 1865 2762400, email: d.coutts@physics.ox.ac.uk. M.J. Withford , J.A. Piper Centre for Lasers and Applications, Macquarie University, 2109 Australia. Tel: 61 2 9850 7056, FAX 61 2 9850 8983, email: withford@ics.mq.edu.au

G. Rutterford, A.I. Bell, M.R.H. Knowles Oxford Lasers Ltd., Abingdon Science Park, Abingdon OX14 3YR, UK. Tel: 44 1235 554211, FAX 44 1235 554311, email: martyn.knowles@oxfordlasers.com.

Abstract In most laser micro-machining applications using copper vapour lasers, the system is configured for near-diffraction limited beam quality. This enables the beam to be tightly focussed to very small spot sizes and can be used for drilling very small holes or trepanning larger ones. The focused spot has a gaussian-like profile. In this paper a new laser system is presented that has a flat-top beam when focused. This has many advantages over gaussian beams when applied to percussion drilling and certain other applications. This system has demonstrated high speed percussion drilling of high quality 100 micron diameter holes in metals. We also report high speed (>200 holes/sec) percussion drilling in green sheet ceramic. The new laser system is a compact copper vapour laser (CVL) master-oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) incorporating telescopic beam expansion in a high-gain double-pass amplifier. By configuring an oscillator for low coherence output and using a multimode optical fibre between the oscillator and a double-pass amplifier, high power (up to 34W) low divergence output beams having well defined flat-top far field beam profiles have been produced. This scheme generates a flat-top far-field beam profile by control of the spatial coherence of a flat-top near-field beam rather than the usual techniques of producing flattened gaussian beams from coherent gaussian beams. The output of such a MOPA has also demonstrated high power (34W average power, 80kW peak power) damage-free transmission through 100 micron core diameter optical fibres. This is of significant interest to system integrators and for certain applications.

Conventional Copper Vapour Laser Oscillator and MOPA Configurations The high gain but short gain duration of the CVL presents certain challenges and opportunities when designing a high beam quality laser system. A typical CVL discharge tube has a gain of the order 10000 or more. The gain profile can be annular, top-hat or gaussian-like dependent upon the gas parameters. The duration of the gain period is typically 30 - 50ns and the upper laser level lifetime against spontaneous emission is of the order a few nanoseconds. A typical discharge tube is 1m long and 25mm diameter. Thus the gain period only lasts 4 6 round trip periods of the cavity. Therefore, in order to achieve high beam quality, a high magnification unstable cavity is most often used1. The divergence of the first burst of radiation is given by the aspect ratio of the tube, typically 25mrads. The unstable cavity reduces the divergence by a factor given by the cavity until diffraction limit is achieved. With a typical magnification of 100, diffraction limit (0.05mrads for a 25mm diameter tube) is achieved by the second complete round trip. Thus the latter part of the pulse is diffraction limited. A spatial filter is often used to remove the higher divergence, earlier part of the pulse which may account for as much as 50% of the raw power emitted by the cavity. The high gain of the CVL enables efficient amplification2,3 of the oscillator beam in a subsequent discharge tube (power amplifier), see figure 1. Saturation of the amplifiers gain is easily achieved. However, spatial filtering of the oscillator pulse tends to reduce its pulse length and so it is advantageous if the amplifier pulse is matched to the filtered oscillator pulse. In this case full extraction of the available power is possible. The low pressure gas medium and the end windows on the tube are free of significant aberration and so the high quality of the injected beam from the master oscillator is preserved by the power amplifier. This enables the CVL to generate extremely high average powers and high beam quality simultaneously a feature which is currently unique to gas lasers.

Single-Pass

Oscillator

Figure 1. A conventional CVL MOPA system with an unstable cavity oscillator, spatial filter telescope and single pass power amplifier. The resulting beam, from either an oscillator or MOPA system, is typically top-hat profile or gaussian-like in the near field depending on the gas mix and pressure used. The far-field of the

top-hat will be an Airy pattern, although the diffraction rings are usually very weak and below threshold and so often do not play a significant part in many micro-machining applications. The far-field of the gaussian-like near field is also gaussian-like.

(a)

(b)

Figure 2. (a) Near field (top-hat) and (b) far field profile of a oscillator/MOPA CVL. Double-Pass Amplifier Configurations Double pass amplification enables a lower power oscillator to be used and relaxes the constraint on matching the pulse lengths of the filtered oscillator and power amplifier4,5. In the first configuration double-pass amplification is achieved using a geometric approach to separate the input and output beams as shown in figure 3. The output from the oscillator is focused into the amplifier through a 1mm diameter hole drilled in a 45o high reflecting coupling mirror located at one end of the amplifier. The transmitted beam is recollimated by a spherical mirror at the other end of the amplifier for the return pass through the amplifier, and is separated from the input beam by reflection off the coupling mirror. (Note that for a 25 mm diameter return beam the power loss due to the hole in the coupling mirror is less than 0.2%.) An f = 400 mm lens and 5 mm diameter aperture were used to define the injected beam numerical aperture such that the beam injected into the amplifier would expand to 25 mm diameter after the first transit through the amplifier.
Coupling Mirror with 1 mm hole R=4 m Amplifier R=1.5 m Oscillator R=100 mm 50% Polariser

Figure 3. Double pass amplification scheme using conventional beam coupling between the oscillator and amplifier.

A minature CVL oscillator with 360mm length active discharge length was used with a low magnification (M=15) unstable cavity6. It produced 0.5W of high beam quality radiation at a pulse repetition frequency of 12 kHz. The amplifier CVL had an active region of 25 mm diameter by 1.0 m long7. When the amplifier CVL was operated as an oscillator with a fully stable resonator (4 m radius of curvature high reflector and plane 8% reflecting output coupler) an average output power of 20 W was obtained at 12 kHz PRF. This figure increased to 37 W at 12 kHz PRF with kinetic enhancement (KE) by the addition of hydrogen and HCl additives to the buffer gas7,8. A fibre-coupled MOPA configuration having geometrically defined beam quality was also investigated as shown in figure 4. For these experiments the oscillator was operated with a fully stable resonator to give poor spatial coherence yet sufficiently low divergence (~7 mrad) to couple efficiently into a 200 m core-diameter step-index optical fibre using a 25 mm focal length lens. A pair of achromatic lenses was used to produce a ~2 mm diameter image of the fibre tip on the back of the coupling mirror. After transmission through the 1mm diameter hole in the coupling mirror, the imaged fibre output defined a sharp 1 mm diameter top-hat intensity distribution which subsequently propagated on two transits through the amplifier as in the direct coupling case. When the output of this system was focused by a lens, an image of the beam transmitted through the 1 mm diameter hole in the coupling mirror was produced; thus the fibre coupled MOPA produced a top-hat far-field intensity distribution. For a 1 mm diameter hole in the coupling mirror and a 4 m radius of curvature rear reflector on the amplifier, the calculated MOPA beam divergence is 500 rad full angle or approximately 25 times the diffraction limit. Lower divergence beams (including diffraction-limited beams) were obtained by placing an appropriately sized mask in front of the hole in the coupling mirror.

Top-Hat Far-Field Scraper Mirror with 1 mm hole

Double-Pass Amplifier Polariser 1 W Oscillator 200 micron step index fibre

Figure 4. Double-pass amplifier configuration using a fibre optic beam coupling between the oscillator and amplifier. For the fibre-coupled double-pass MOPA configuration, over 700 mW of oscillator power was delivered by the 200 m fibre. After transmission through the field-limiting aperture and the 1 mm diameter hole in the amplifier coupling mirror, the power injected into the double-pass amplifier was reduced to just 40 mW. However, even just 40 mW seed power was sufficient to extract 33.8 W non-ASE output from the kinetically enhanced double-pass amplifier.

The output power of the amplifier under single-pass, double-pass and double-pass KE configurations is shown below in figure 5 (a). Extrapolation of the graph shows that the small signal gains were 2104, 1106 and 1.5106 for the three configurations respectively.

40
Single-Pass CVL Double-Pass CVL Double-Pass KE CVL

Output Power (W)

30

20

10

0 10-6 10-5 10-4 10-3 10-2 10-1

Input Power (W)

(a) (b) Figure 5. (a) Output power as a function of input power for single-pass, double-pass and doublepass KE configurations. (b) Far-field beam profile of the fibre coupled double-pass amplifier The beam profile for the fibre-coupled double-pass MOPA configuration was recorded at the focus of a 1 m focal length lens. In the focal plane the beam diameter was 500 microns (FWHM) corresponding to 500 rad beam divergence as expected from the geometry of the fibre-coupled double-pass MOPA configuration. The intensity (irradiance) at focus was uniform to within 10% over ~75% of the beam diameter corresponding to a flat-top beam profile. On either side of the focus the peak beam intensity falls smoothly becoming gaussian like, and with no hot-spots such as would be produced by focusing a plane-wave beam having the same near field-profile. The beam profile at focus is shown in figure 5 (b) which shows that the beam is a well defined circle and has very little intensity in the wings of the flat-top profile. Flat-top beams can be produced from gaussian beams9, and as such may be described as a coherent sum of LP modes10. However, the fibre-coupled double-pass MOPA scheme produces a flat-top far-field corresponding to a spatially incoherent 1 mm diameter source classically imaged using f: 80 optics (as defined by the aperture and focal length of the amplifier rear mirror). Thus the beam profile is not produced by diffractive effects, and therefore has different propagation characteristics when compared to a coherent flattened gaussian beam. Focusing Configurations The fibre coupled MOPA was focused onto the surface of the workpiece using a 200 mm focal length lens to produce a top hat profile on the surface with diameter of 100 microns.

The conventional CVL MOPA has a top hat beam profile in the near field and a gaussian-like profile in the far field. Whereas in principle it is possible to put a mask in the near field beam profile and image that to produce a top-hat beam profile on the surface of the workpiece, in practice it is difficult to produce images on the 100 micron scale. The CVL beam diameter is 25mm and so to produce a 100 micron image of this using a reasonable focal length lens, say 50 mm focal length requires the mask lens distance to be 250m. Alternatively, the beam may be telescoped down in diameter and then a smaller mask and object distance used. The aim of these tests was to produce the best top hat profile that could be achieved with a conventional MOPA without significant altering the optical configuration. That is, use a configuration that any user could readily achieve and which would not involve changing any of the standard hardware. Inevitably this results in a compromise and so the top hat profile is not perfect. It was decided that the best way to achieve this is would be to use a short focal length lens and to raise the focus above the surface of the workpiece until the desired spot size of 100 microns diameter was achieved. A 75mm focal length lens was used and the focused was raised 300 microns above the surface so that the beam diameter on the surface was 100 microns. In this plane the beam is between the far field and image of the near field mask, typically the profile will be starting to approximate to the near field, that is a top hat but modulated by diffraction structure (series of concentric rings).

Near field top hat profile

Far field

Intermediate field Image of near field top hat profile Figure 6. Schematic showing typical beam profiles in the near field (laser output), far field (at the focus of a lens), intermediate field and the image of the near field.

Drilling Results in Green Sheet Ceramic Green sheet ceramic (165 micron thickness) was percussion drilled using a conventional CVL MOPA system and fibre coupled MOPA system. The results are shown in figure 7 below and the laser parameters are noted in the figure legend. It was found that, even using relatively low laser powers (< 5W average power), the material removal rate is very high in green sheet ceramic. Percussion drilled holes could be formed with just 30 pulses, that is a drill time of 3ms. Using a fast galvo scanning system, drill rates of greater than 200 holes/sec would be possible. However, these holes suffered from high taper and poor shape. The average depth removal is 5.5 microns/pulse. At higher fluences we have observed material removal rates of up to 15 microns/pulse. Higher quality holes were achieved by reducing the laser pulse frequency to 500 Hz and protecting the top surface, implying that the poorer hole quality at high pulse frequencies was largely a thermal effect.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 7. Percussion drilling in green sheet ceramic (165 micron thickness). (a) & (b) Conventional MOPA, (a) laser entry side and (b) laser exit side. Average power used was 1 W at 12 kHz pulse frequency. The pulse frequency used for drilling was 500 Hz and 200 pulses were used (400 ms drill time). (c) & (d) Fibre coupled MOPA (c) laser entry side and (d) laser exit side. Average power used was 4 W at 12 kHz pulse frequency. The number of pulses used was 100 (8.3 ms drill time). Drilling Results in Metal The same laser configurations were used to perform micromachining trials in brass as a representative metal. The results are shown in figures 8 and 9 below and the laser parameters are noted in the figure legend.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 8. Percussion drilled holes of 100 micron diameter through 125 micron thickness brass using a conventional MOPA. (a) laser entry side as drilled, (b) laser entry side after deburring and (c) laser exit side as drilled. The average power used was 36 W at 10 kHz pulse frequency. The number of laser pulses used was 255 (21 ms drill time).

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 9. Percussion drilled holes of 100 micron diameter through 125 micron thickness brass using the fibre-coupled MOPA. (a) laser entry side as drilled, (b) laser entry side after deburring and (c) laser exit side as drilled. The average power used was 36 W at 12 kHz pulse frequency and 255 pulses (21 ms drill time) were used.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 10. Trepanned hole of 100 micron diameter through 125 micron thickness brass using a conventional MOPA. (a) laser entry side as drilled, (b) laser entry side after deburring and (c) laser exit side as drilled. The average power used was 3 W at 10 kHz pulse frequency. The beam was focused using a 75 mm focal length lens to a spot diameter of 10 microns and the beam was

scanned in a 100 micron diameter circle using a dedicated laser beam trepanning head (model ATH-1). The drill time used was 5s. Figure 8 and 9 show that the superior top hat beam profile produced by the fibre coupled MOPA produces superior percussion drilled holes to the conventional MOPA system. In both cases the pulse energy used was about 2.8mJ giving a fluence of 36 J/cm2 and intensity of 1.4 GW/cm2. The drill time was 21 ms with an average material removal rate of 0.5 microns/pulse. The trepanned hole in figure 10 shows the best hole shape and the least dross and recast. However the drill time used was 5 seconds. The focused laser fluence and intensity were 380 J/cm2 and intensity of 15 GW/cm2 respectively. Conclusions Most laser sources produce a gaussian-like beam at the focus of a conventional lens. However, the fibre coupled MOPA produces a high quality top hat beam profile at the focus of a conventional lens. Our results have demonstrated that this gives a direct and significant improvement in the quality of percussion drilled holes of about 100 microns diameter in metals. The hole quality was not as good as that which can be achieved using trepanning methods but the drill speed was over 200 times faster. In the case of the green sheet ceramic, it was found that the beam profile was less important than other factors such as pulse frequency in producing best quality holes although drill speeds of greater than 200 holes/sec were possible. In brass the percussion drilled hole quality was superior to that drilled with a conventional beam. The top hat beam produced by the fibre coupled MOPA fills an interesting gap in quality vs speed compared to normal percussion drilled holes and trepanned holes. Potential applications could include the drilling of fuel filters. Higher power systems might be attractive in aerospace applications such as cooling holes in engine components and laminar flow control holes in aerofoil sections.

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