Process Date: October 2000

2-watts of power, 20"/minute, pulsed beam.

This application required etching a variety of patterns, all less than 100 microns in width,  into a 35-micron-thick gold coating on a mylar film. Gold is highly reflective of the CO2 wavelength, and most often cannot be processed with our lasers, but at this thickness, the heat build-up becomes dominant enough to enable removal of the thin coating. By using low power and operating the laser in pulsed mode, sufficient energy control was reached to enable the gold coating to be removed, while leaving the mylar thermally undamaged.