A wide range of polymers can be laser machined with extremely high precision. This includes polymers that occur in both the synthetic and natural form.
Many polymers can be laser drilled and cut with extreme quality and precision, but care needs to be taken with the judicious choice of laser wavelength and pulse length to ensure best quality results. Laser drilled micro holes can be created as small as a few microns, whereas laser micro cutting can cost effectively produce features up to several centimetres and beyond.
To ensure the highest precision while processing both polymers and engineering plastics, the correct choice of processing conditions is extremely important to ensure that cumulative heat effects are avoided and high-quality results at the micron level are achieved. Often the colour of the polymer can significantly influence the choice of processing conditions.
Polymers as thin as a few tens of microns through to thicknesses of several millimetres can be drilled and cut.
A sample of polymers we can machine include:
ABS | Acrylics | Flouropolymers (PTFE/Teflon/FEP etc) | Polyimides (inc. Kapton) | Plus many more...
The materials detailed above are purely a summary overview, therefore if the material you are interested in working in is not listed, please contact us.