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How Does Laser Cleaning Technology Function?
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How Does Laser Cleaning Technology Function?
Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (laser) is a monochromatic and coherent electromagnetic source that propagates in a straight line with negligible divergence. Currently, lasers are used in different material processing applications in the manufacturing sector, ranging from surface cleaning to nanofabrication.Get more news about laser cleaner,you can vist our website!
Laser cleaning represents a non-destructive and non-contact cleaning method that allows the removal of surface contaminants from the bulk of the material in a controlled manner using a laser beam. Thus, laser cleaning machines are gradually becoming the equipment of choice for the containment removal process/cleaning.
The suitable laser type and optimal parameters differ for every cleaning application. The laser output parameters can be varied on a large scale in the laser cleaning method. Thus, specific laser output parameters can be selected based on the material/contaminant that has to be removed.
Steam cleaning and dry cleaning are the major types of laser cleaning methods used for surface contaminant removal. Dry laser cleaning involves pulse laser heating of a dry solid surface, while steam laser cleaning involves pulse laser heating of the solid surface in presence of a liquid layer.
Dry laser cleaning turns into evaporative cleaning when the energy of the incident laser pulse is increased. Although this technique is simple, dry cleaning is less effective compared to steam cleaning and requires a higher laser intensity. Moreover, dry laser cleaning can cause damage to the metal surface.
How Laser Cleaning Technology Functions
Laser cleaning is primarily a form of laser ablation that occurs when a material deposited on a surface or a layer of material is removed using a laser beam. Laser rust removal on steel and other materials is based on the laser ablation process.However, laser ablation of material occurs only when the energy of the incident laser beam is higher than the ablation threshold of that material. Every material possesses a specific ablation threshold depending on its molecular bonds, and the threshold differs from other materials.
Thus, a material can be removed in a highly selective manner during laser cleaning without impacting the other material when the difference between the ablation thresholds of two materials is sufficiently large.
For instance, the ablation threshold of rust is significantly lower compared to the threshold of steel or aluminum, which allows the use of laser cleaning machines to completely vaporize the rust without damaging the underlying steel.
Although both pulsed and continuous laser beam-based cleaning processes can be used to remove a layer effectively, the speed of the process varies depending on the laser beam used for the cleaning.The pulsed laser beam is more efficient and offers a faster removal speed compared to the continuous laser beam. Additionally, the use of a pulsed laser beam can prevent overheating of the underlying metal.