Authors: S Arif O Armbruster W Kautek
Publish Date: 2013/01/12
Volume: 111, Issue: 2, Pages: 539-548
Abstract
The mechanisms of graphite particle and polystyrenecodivinyl benzene microsphere removal from flat polycarbonate substrates by nanosecond pulse laser interaction at 532 nm were studied both experimentally and theoretically These model contaminants exhibited an extremely contrasting behavior in respect to phase separation and collateral damage to the polycarbonate substrate Opaque graphite particles within the irradiated spot area either desorbed due to their thermal expansion or undertook vaporization/ablation The transparent polystyrene microspheres caused local ablation of the substrate in their optical nearfield This process led to the removal of the particles but eradicated the available cleaning fluence window The opaque graphite particles on the other hand showed efficient clearance particularly in a practicable cleaning window above 05~mathrmJ/cm2 and low pulse numbers of about two Besides the mechanisms occurring within the irradiated spot a separation process in the proximity beyond the laser spot more than double the Gaussian radius could be related to the action of highamplitude surface acoustic waves SAW A minimum surface acceleration of 109~mathrmcm/s2 was calculated to be sufficient to overcome the adhesion forces in this particle separation modelThe authors are thankful to Peter Hess University of Heidelberg for invaluable discussions and Christoph Huber for recording the scanning force micrograph One of the authors SA acknowledges a scholarship by the Higher Education Commission HEC Pakistan
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