The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-017-1454-z

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

A study on the micromachining of molybdenum using nanosecond

and femtosecond lasers
Mobin M. Mathew 1 & Ravi N. Bathe 2 & G. Padmanabham 2 & R. Padmanaban 1 & S. Thirumalini 1

Received: 30 January 2017 / Accepted: 29 November 2017

# Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2017

Abstract
Laser micromachining is an advanced machining process in which machining is achieved by focusing a laser beam to melt and
vaporize the material. The primary aim of this work is to fabricate a control grid for an electron gun using laser micromachining.
Initially, line scribing and 2D profiling experiments are performed on a 130-μm molybdenum plate to compare the surface quality
and material removal rate of nanosecond and femtosecond lasers. The effects of laser processing parameters such as average
power, repetition rate, and the feed rate on the width, depth, material removal rate, and cut quality of both the nanosecond and
femtosecond lasers are studied. During micromachining using the nanosecond laser, melting and recasting of the metal around the
machined sites are observed, resulting in the formation of heat-affected zone. During machining using the femtosecond laser,
ultrafast laser pulses are used, which result in the absence of heat-affected zone. The surface roughness obtained using the
femtosecond laser for creating a 2D profile is 0.187 μm, while using the nanosecond laser, the roughness value obtained is
1.89 μm. The femtosecond laser is used to successfully machine the 3D profile of the control grid, adopting the optimized
parameters obtained from the line scribing and 2D profiling experiments. The average width of the grid line was measured as
149.89 μm which is very close to the required dimension of 150 μm.

Keywords Laser micromachining . Line scribing . 2D profiling . Heat-affected zone . Surface roughness

1 Introduction material thickness. In the biomedical field, femtosecond laser

Laser micromachining uses a concentrated beam of laser lo-
calized on the surface of the material to melt and evaporate it
at a very high rate without causing severe damage to the sur-
face or bulk material. New advancements and unique proper-
ties of lasers place them as a superior choice in a variety of
applications such as welding, cutting, drilling, and cladding.
Ultrafast laser machining process has now become one of the
preferred choices in micromachining applications for machin-
ing of metals, ceramics, elastomers, etc., irrespective of
* R. Padmanaban
dr_padmanaban@cb.amrita.edu
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amrita School of
Engineering, Coimbatore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India
2
Center for Laser Processing of Materials, ARCI,
Hyderabad, Telangana, India
is applied for fabrication of medical stents and is used as the
main source for eye surgery. Machining of microlenses or
diffractive optical elements in optical materials with high sur-
face finish has become possible by lasers. The ultrafast lasers
are able to machine transparent materials both inside (bulk) of
the material and its outside. Material removal in the case of a
long-pulsed laser is by hot ablation, i.e., melting the material
using the thermal energy dissipated from the laser head. The
major disadvantage observed with these lasers is their longer
pulse that facilitates heat diffusion to the surrounding material,
resulting in the formation of heat-affected zone and recast
layer. Ultrafast or short-pulsed lasers are those lasers in which
the material under the action of lasers undergoes phase change
directly from solid to plasma without any molten state. The
time of interaction between laser and base material is less than
that of the time required for the heat to get diffused into the
material which results in a smaller or negligible heat-affected
zone and reduced defects in the processed materials. Laser
micromachining involves various processing parameters such
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Fig. 1 Schematic of the a front

view of control grid, b line
scribing trials, and c square
profile

as laser power, pulse energy and duration, pulse width, feed formation during femtosecond laser milling of pockets in sili-
rate or cutting speed, repetition rate (RR), and shielding gas con. Stavropoulos et al. [2] analyze the effect of energy and
pressure. Proper selection of these processing parameters is pulse width of femtosecond laser on material removal during
important for producing the micron-level profile in various the laser ablation process of iron. Hung et al. [3] propose a NiTi
materials. tube curve process that enhances the laser ablation rate and
Lee et al. [1] investigate the crater formation mechanism and reduces the amount of energy accumulated within the materials.
the effect of pulse energy, translation speed, and the number of Altering the machining path improves the overall machining
passes on the material removal rate and the microstructure efficiency and decreases the formation of heat-affected zones.
Yu et al. [4] assess the capability of axicon lens in producing
narrow grooves and the influence of femtosecond laser pulse
Table 1 Parameters for line scribing experiments using the nanosecond energy, scanning speed, and the distance between the axicon tip
laser and the sample’s surface. Darvishi et al. [5] assess the impact of
S. no. Power (W) Current (A) Feed Repetition rate sample speed, the number of passes, and the laser power cross-
(mm/s) (kHz) sectional geometry and dimensions of microchannels during
ultrafast laser micromachining of hard glass and a soft polymer.
1 0.1 9.7 10 1
Cheng et al. [6] investigate the effects of laser operating param-
2 0.2 9.735 10 1 eters of pulse overlap, repetition rate, and the number of
3 0.5 9.950 10 1 overscan on microprocessing quality and efficiency for
4 1 10.233 10 1
5 2 10.735 10 1
6 5 12.20 10 1 Table 2 Parameters for line scribing experiments using the
7 1 9.7 10 20 femtosecond laser (RR = 10 kHz)
8 1 9.735 10 5
Sl. no. Power (W) Current (A) Feed (mm/s)
9 5 11.75 10 10
10 10 13.240 10 10 1 2 10.735 10
11 15 14.24 10 10 2 2 10.735 5
12 20 15.970 10 10 3 2 10.735 2.5
Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Table 3 Parameters for 2D profiling using the nanosecond laser (RR = Table 5 Material removal using the nanosecond laser
10 kHz)
Sl. Repetition Power Feed Pulse Material Heat
Sl. no. Power (W) Current (A) Feed (mm/s) Number of passes no. rate (kHz) (W) (mm/s) energy removal accumulation
(W/s)
1 5 11.750 10 5
2 5 11.750 5 20 1 1 2 10 0.002 Yes No
3 20 15.970 2.5 12 2 1 5 10 0.005 Yes No
4 20 15.970 2.5 6 3 10 10 10 0.001 Yes Yes
4 10 15 10 0.0015 Yes Yes

picosecond and femtosecond laser microstructuring of metals

Ti alloy, aluminum, and copper. Amer et al. [7] monitor induced
stress and amorphization of a single-crystal silicon wafer
micromachined using femtosecond and nanosecond lasers.
Uppal et al. [8] report a novel femtosecond laser
micromachining system (FLM) and determine a threshold
fluence for hard and soft PZTs for femtosecond laser machin-
ing. Microchannels and a 3D microgear were developed. Park
et al. [9] report that by vibrating the optical objective lens dur-
ing femtosecond laser micromachining, both the wall surface
finish of the machined structures and the aspect ratio obtained
have been improved. Malshe et al. [10] report a study on the
influence of femtosecond laser machining on the surface integ-
rity of lithium niobate. Watanabe et al. [11] review ultrafast
laser microprocessing and welding of transparent materials with
applications. Huang et al. [12] examine the effect of femtosec-
ond laser machining on surface characteristics and subsurface
microstructure of a Nitinol alloy and report very low roughness
in femtosecond laser machining. Wu et al. [13] demonstrate
femtosecond laser machining of electron spun polycaprolactone
membrane and study the influence of the various laser irradia-
tion settings on the final microstructure of the membranes.
Zhu et al. [14] present experimental results on the influence of
laser parameters and material properties on drilling sub-10-mm
holes in thin metal foils using femtosecond laser pulses. Wei et al.
[15] explore the effect of defocus, pulse width, and scanning
speed on the kerf size and microstructure of femtosecond laser
beam-cut Inconel 738. Richards et al. [16] explore optimum laser
operating conditions to efficiently cut a cadmium tungstate
single-crystal scintillator, and present a methodology to clean
the ablated surface. Tan et al. [17] explore the influence of rep-
etition rate and pulse energy on femtosecond laser machining of
a gold-coated silicon wafer. Yang et al. [18] explore the effect of
different pulse durations varying from femtosecond to

Table 4 Parameters for 2D profiling using the femtosecond laser (RR =

10 kHz)

Sl. no. Power Current (A) Feed (mm/s)

1 2 10.735 10
2 2 10.735 5 Fig. 2 Optical micrograph of lines scribed using the nanosecond laser for
a power of a 2 W and b 5 W
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

millisecond on the morphology, aspect ratio, composition, and
microstructure of laser-irradiated titanium. Zhang et al. [19] in-
vestigate the micromachining of polymers with femtosecond la-
sers to produce precise holes with higher aspect ratio. Wang et al.
[20] analyzed the effect of the delay between two pulses on the
morphology of drilled holes in femtosecond double-pulse laser
microdrilling of aluminum and copper. Abilash et al. [21] report
the effect of relative position of the arc and laser on the weld bead
during CO2 laser welding of mild steels.
Many works have been done using ultrafast lasers on mate-
rials ranging from plastics, polymers, to metals, aiming to find
the efficiency of the machining process and the surface mor-
phology. Studies on laser processing of pure molybdenum
using nanosecond and femtosecond lasers are very few. In this
work, laser machining trials are conducted by varying the
parameters and the effect of these parameters on the quality
and rate of material removal is analyzed. The primary aim of
this work is to compare the surface quality and material removal
rate while machining molybdenum control grid using nanosec-
ond and femtosecond lasers and to find optimum parameters.
2 Experimental procedure
The solid model of the control grid to be fabricated using laser
micromachining is shown in Fig. 1a. The material choice was a
130-μm molybdenum plate. Initially, line scribing and square
profiling experiments are performed as shown in Fig. 1b, c, to
compare the surface quality and material removal rate of nano-
second and femtosecond lasers. The effects of laser power,
repetition rate, and the feed rate on the width, depth, material
removal rate, and cut quality of both the nanosecond and fem-
tosecond lasers are studied. The laser system used is a Ti/

a Effect of laser power on width of lines

90

80

70
Width (mm)

60

50

40

30
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Power (W)
b Effect of laser power on depth of lines
24

22

20

18
Depth (mm)

16

14

12

10

6
2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Power (W)

Fig. 3 Three-dimensional image of lines scribed using the nanosecond Fig. 4 Effect of power on a line width, b depth, and c material removal
laser for a power of a 2 W and b 5 W rate. d Effect of feed on the groove width
Int J Adv Manuf Technol

sapphire laser system, a solid-state laser in which titanium- using a digital microscope, and the line width, depth, and
doped sapphire (Al2O3) is used as the lasing medium. The cross-sectional area were calculated using the digital
system is a continuously tunable laser with a range of 650 to microscope.
1100 nm, and it can generate femtosecond, nanosecond, and
picosecond lasers. The morphology of the micromachined sur-
face is being analyzed with the help of a digital optical micro-
2.2 Square profiling experiments
scope (Olympus DSX510). The 3D imaging (stitching) capa-
The optimized parameters found from the line scribing exper-
bility makes it possible to measure various parameters like
iments were used for machining a 5 × 5 mm square profile
width, depth, and heat-affected zone at the micron level.

2.1 Line scribing experiments

Initially, the optimum parameters were found by

conducting line scribing experiments as shown in Fig. 1b.
The line scribing experiments conducted using the nano-
second laser and the process parameters are given in
Table 1. The line scribing experiments were repeated using
the femtosecond laser, and the experiments were conducted
as listed in Table 2, with the feed rate varied at three levels
of 2.5,, 5, and 10 mm/s. The lines obtained are analyzed

c Effect of laser power on material removal rate

700

600
Material removal rate (mm 3/s)

500

400

300

200

100
2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Power (W)

d Effect of feed on width of lines

45

40

35
Width (mm)

30

25

20

15
5 10 15 20
Feed (mm/s)
Fig. 5 Optical images of lines scribed with the nanosecond laser a for a
power of 1 W and a repetition rate of 1 kHz and b for a power of 20 W and
Fig. 4 continued. a repetition rate of 10 kHz
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

with a groove on the molybdenum plate as shown in Fig. 1c.
The square profile has been made on the plate using both
nanosecond and femtosecond lasers by varying the process
parameters as given in Tables 3 and 4, respectively. The ma-
chined plate surfaces were cleaned using an ultrasonication
process, and the cleaned surfaces were analyzed using a digital
microscope. The surface roughness of the four sides of the
square profile machined using both femtosecond and nanosec-
ond lasers was measured using a digital microscope and com-
pared. The optimum parameters obtained from the 2D ma-
chining experiments were used for machining the control grid.
3 Results and discussions
The characteristics of the lines scribed using the nanosecond
laser, namely the width, the depth, and the material removal
rate, are measured using a digital microscope and are listed in
Table 5. Even though the material removal rate is achieved,
the problem of heat accumulation is observed while machin-
ing with a 10 kHz repetition rate. The optical micrographs and
the corresponding 3D images of the lines scribed using the
nanosecond laser are shown in Figs. 2 and 3, respectively.
From Fig. 2, it is observed that for the trials with a 2 W power,
the material got removed with a very less heat-affected zone
when compared to trials using a 5 W power. The 2D images of
the lines are converted into 3D images by a process called
focused stitching, using which the depth, width, and cross-
sectional area are measured. From the 3D images shown in
Fig. 3, it is clear that while machining with an average power
of 5 W, the material is getting more amount of heat compared
with that with a 2 W power which results in the formation of
heat-affected zone on both the sides of the groove. The energy
per pulse plays an important role in the formation of heat-
affected zone around the groove. The pulse energy (average
power/repetition rate) is high when using a 5 W power. So, a

a Effect of feed on width of lines c Effect of feed on material removal rate

90 2000

85 1800
Material removal rate (mm 3/s)

80 1600
Width (mm)

75 1400

70 1200

65 1000

60 800
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Feed (mm/s) Feed (mm/s)

b Effect of feed on depth of lines

50

48

46
Depth (mm)

44

42

40

38

36
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Feed (mm/s)

Fig. 6 Effect of femtosecond laser parameters on a width, b depth, and c material removal rate of scribed lines
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
Fig. 7 Two-dimensional image of lines scribed using the femtosecond
laser (2 W) machined at a 10 mm/s and b 5 mm/s
heat-affected zone occurs when an average power of 5 W and
above is used for machining using nanosecond lasers. The
width and depth of the inscribed lines were measured using
a digital optical microscope, and the results obtained are
shown in Fig. 4.
3.1 Effect of parameters on width, depth,
and material removal rate during nanosecond laser
machining
The effect of power on the width of the scribed line is shown
in Fig. 4a. From the figure, it is seen that the width variation is
directly proportional to the power. An increase in the average
power increases the energy per pulse, and hence, the maxi-
mum amount of heat gets dissipated to the material which
makes the material to get ablated from the base material. It is
seen that for higher power, the width is more comparative. The
hot ablation mechanism causes more material to melt as the
heat source moves, creating the heat-affected zone around the
groove compared to low pulse energy. The melted material
gets redeposited around the groove side which results in the
formation of heat-affected zone while machining using the
nanosecond laser. This is shown in Fig. 5b. Even though ma-
terial removal is achieved for the parameters used, proper
selection of the power is required so that machining of the
materials is achieved without compromising the cut quality
as well as with a smaller heat-affected zone.
Pulse energy is directly related to the average power and
influences the depth of penetration of the groove. The effect of
average power on the depth of the groove is shown in Fig. 4b.
The variation of depth with respect to power is found to be
linear. The increase in power increases the energy per pulse
that comes in contact with the molybdenum plate. This results
in the material getting removed by a cold ablation process; i.e.,
the material gets directly vaporized from the solid state. The
number of passes required to machine the plate is easily ob-
tained from the depth of penetration measured. The width and
depth of the groove vary linearly with average power, and as
the pulse energy increases, both the width and depth increase.
For an average power of 5 W, a heat-affected zone is formed
on the sides of the line, affecting the quality of the machined
part.
The material removal rate for different processing parame-
ters is calculated by measuring the cross-sectional area using
the digital microscope. The variation of material removal rate
with different power levels is shown in Fig. 4c.
All the three characteristics which were considered, i.e.,
width, depth, and material removal rate, vary linearly with av-
erage power. As the average power increases, the material re-
moval rate increases. The more the power, the more the material
gets ablated from the molybdenum plate. For micromachining
operation, precision and surface quality are being evaluated
from the final machined product so it is not favorable to use
higher power as this will lead to a larger heat-affected area in the
machined surface. This is because for nanosecond lasers, the
electron-photon interaction time is more. So, the heat gets
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Fig. 8 Three-dimensional view of

the line machined with the
femtosecond laser at an average
power of 2 W

dissipated to the material surrounding the area where a machin-
ing process takes place. So, from the above experiments, it is
clear that machining on a molybdenum plate using a nanosec-
ond laser can be done by using a 1 kHz repetition rate at an
average power ranging from 2 to 4 W.
repetition rate of 1 kHz. This formation of a recast layer at
higher repetition rate is mainly due to the accumulation of
heat. As the pulse off time is very less at higher repetition
rates, the next pulse will hit the material before the ablated
material solidifies and gets removed to the side, resulting in
the accumulation of heat and formation of a recast layer.

3.2 Effect of feed rate on width and surface

morphology
The effect of feed rate on the width and surface morphology
was analyzed by conducting experiments at a repetition rate of
1 kHz and a power of 1 W (Table 1). The width of the resulting
lines is measured and graphically depicted in Fig. 4d. From
Fig. 4d, it is observed that the width of the lines decreases as
the feed rate increases. At low feed rates, the laser spot over-
lapping occurs, resulting in the removal of more material,
while at higher feed rates, overlapping of the beam is very less
and only dimples are formed on the machined surface. Thus,
the width obtained at lower feed rates is higher, and for higher
feed rates, the width obtained is smaller.
The repetition rate was changed, and line scribing experi-
ments were done as per the parameters mentioned in Table 1.
The microscopic images of the resulting lines are shown in
Fig. 5. From the figure, it is observed that a recast layer forms
along the groove when the repetition rate is 10 kHz, while the
recast layer formation along the groove is not evident for the
Table 6 Parameters for 2D profiling using the nanosecond laser (RR =
10 kHz)
3.3 Effect of femtosecond laser parameters on the line
width, depth, and material removal rate
The line scribing experiments were done using the femtosec-
ond laser as shown in Fig. 1a, and the parameters are listed in
Table 2. The effects of feed rate on width, depth, and material
removal rate were studied and are shown in Fig. 6. The mi-
croscopic images of femtosecond laser-machined lines are
shown in Fig. 7.
By comparing Figs. 5 and 7, it is clear that the heat-affected
zone is absent while machining using the femtosecond laser
when compared to the nanosecond laser, for the same processing
parameters. The 3D image of the line machined with the femto-
second laser at a power of 2 W is shown in Fig. 8, which clearly
shows the absence of heat-affected zone (HAZ) during the fem-
tosecond laser machining process. When the femtosecond laser
pulses hit the material, the physical transformation due to
electron-phonon interaction time is less, i.e., less than 10−15 s.
Within this very short time, heat dissipation to the surroundings
will not occur and hence HAZ is absent. Due to the absence of
HAZ, accurate micromachining operations are achievable.

Sl. no. Power (W) Current (A) Feed (mm/s) Number of passes Table 7 Parameters for 2D profiling using the femtosecond laser (RR =
10 kHz)
1 5 11.750 10 5
Sl. no. Power Current (A) Feed (mm/s)
2 5 11.750 5 20
3 20 15.970 2.5 12 1 2 10.735 10
4 20 15.970 2.5 6 2 2 10.735 5
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
Fig. 9 Digital image of square (5 mm × 5 mm) machined at a RR of
10 kHz
3.4 Machining 2D profile using nanosecond
and femtosecond lasers
The optimized parameters found from the line scribing exper-
iments were used for machining a 5 mm × 5 mm square profile
with a groove on the molybdenum plate as shown in Fig. 1b.
The square profile has been made on the plate using both
Fig. 10 Comparison of roughness
obtained using the nanosecond
and femtosecond lasers
nanosecond and femtosecond lasers by varying the process
parameters, as given in Tables 6 and 7, respectively. The ma-
chined plate surfaces were cleaned using an ultrasonication
process, and the cleaned surfaces were analyzed using a digital
microscope. The surface roughness of the four sides of the
square profile machined using both femtosecond and nanosec-
ond lasers was measured using the digital microscope and
compared. The 2D microscopic image is shown in Fig. 9.
The effect of various parameters on both nanosecond and
femtosecond machining processes was studied, and the results
obtained are discussed below.
The machining process was carried out at an average power
of 2 W, a repetition rate of 10 kHz, and a feed rate of 10 mm/s.
The values of surface roughness resulting due to the nanosec-
ond and femtosecond micromachining operations are graphi-
cally plotted in Fig. 10. From Fig. 10, it is observed that the cut
quality of femtosecond laser is much higher than that of nano-
second laser. The roughness value obtained by using the fem-
tosecond laser is between 0.138 and 0.257 μm. While the
surface roughness value obtained by the nanosecond laser lies
in the range of 2.006–2.18 μm. The wide difference in the cut
quality between nanosecond and femtosecond lasers is mainly
due to the absence of heat-affected zone in femtosecond la-
sers. The presence of heat-affected zone affects the surface
properties such as the roughness of the machined surface.
From line scribing and 2D profile cutting trials, it is observed
that the presence of heat-affected zone and the material
redeposition due to heat accumulation effects in the nanosec-
ond laser make the femtosecond laser micromachining a new

Fig. 11 Digital image of the a control grid and b grid lines
method of micromachining operation which can machine ma-
terials without producing a heat-affected zone with higher
accuracy and cut quality.
3.5 Machining 3D profile using femtosecond laser
The 3D profile of the control grid for an electron gun shown in
Fig. 11a was machined using the femtosecond laser. The geom-
etry of the control gun grid was created as a solid model and
was imported into Mastercam, and the program for machining
was generated. The machining of the 3D profile on the molyb-
denum plate was done using ultrafast lasers with a repetition
rate of 10 kHz, a power of 2 W, and a feed rate of 10 mm/s. The
micromachined control grid part was imaged using the digital
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
microscope, and the width of the grid line was measured at
three different locations. The average width of a machined grid
line was found as 149.89 μm which is close to the required line
width of 150 μm as per the part drawing. The obtained 2D
image and the machined part are shown below in Fig. 11.
4 Conclusion
In this work, a comparative study between nanosecond and
femtosecond lasers for micromachining of a 130-μm molyb-
denum plate was conducted. The optimized parameters for
machining the 3D profile were found by conducting line scrib-
ing experiments by varying laser processing parameters such
as repetition rate, average power, and feed rate. During
micromachining using a nanosecond laser, the repetition rate
of 10 kHz was found to result in the formation of a recast layer.
To compare the quality of the surfaces machined by nanosec-
ond and femtosecond lasers, a 5 mm × 5 mm square profile
was machined using both the lasers. It was found that the
surface roughness of the profile machined using the femtosec-
ond laser was superior with a surface roughness of 0.257 μm
while the nanosecond laser produced a surface roughness of
1.97 μm. Micromachining using the nanosecond laser results
in the formation of a heat-affected zone and a decrease in the
surface quality mainly due to the formation of a recast layer in
the groove. It is noted that there was no heat-affected zone
while machining using femtosecond lasers. The better surface
quality produced by the femtosecond laser makes it more suit-
able for the micromachining of molybdenum plate. The opti-
mum repetition rate, power, and feed rate for machining mo-
lybdenum using femtosecond lasers are found to be 10 kHz,
2 W, and 10 mm/s, respectively. The 3D profile was success-
fully machined using the ultrafast laser with the optimized
parameters found from the line scribing and 2D profiling ex-
perimental trials.
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