Photoablation and surface modification of polymers with the excimer laser radiation

The excimer laser radiation has been used for more than ten years to study the ablation and surface modification of polymeric materials. Most of common polymers display strong absorption of the ArF and KrF radiations. The model of the moving interface describes the ablation behaviour with two coefflcients which are the ablation rate constant k and the screening coefficient f. Both k and f depend on polymer, wavelength and pulse duration and are determined by fitting the experimental ablation curves. The parameters have been successfully analyzed for a variety of different polymers. Correlations are found with the aromaticity of the polymer. The model of the moving interface can be used to evaluate the energy which is left on the surface after ablation, as for instance in the case of Mylar surface amorphization.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye