Laser Surface Cleaning in Air: Mechanisms and Applications

Abstract

Surface contaminations are removed by laser irradiation with pulse output and short wavelength in ambient air. It is a dry cleaning process to remove surface contaminations without using ultrasonic cleaning requiring carbon fluorochloride and other organic solvents. The mechanisms of laser cleaning may include laser photodecomposition, laser ablation and surface vibration due to the impact of the laser pulse. Examples of cleaning metal surfaces and magnetic head sliders show that this cleaning process could be widely used in various industrial applications.