The enclosed laser ablation of multiple stacks of laminated, metallised polymer

Enclosed laser ablation of single laminated, metallised polymer films (i.e. polymer, metal, adhesive, polymer layers respectively) has been studied in depth previously by the authors. It was found that most of the energy during this process was transmitted by the transparentised films. Therefore, it was proposed that multiple stacks of laminated metallised polymer samples could be transparentised with a single pass. In this paper, such experiments were carried out and stacks of 10 samples could be transparentised successfully with a single laser pass. The pulse energy incident upon each film was calculated from transmissivity measurements of each sample layer in a successfully demetallised stack, and the results were used to explain the behaviour observed from the experiments. Additional physical phenomena that were not present with single layer enclosed ablation have now been observed for the enclosed laser ablation of multiple layered stacks.