Effect of Femtosecond Laser Impulses for Metallic Glass Magnetic Properties during Laser Cutting Processes

Abstract

Advanced and new magnetisable materials such as METGLAS (Fe78Si9B13) metal glass ribbon have very good magnetic properties. However, production of these material is very difficult, because the manufacturing processes like cutting can damage the magnetic properties of the material. The cutting process can be carried out with waterjet, punching tools, or even a plate cutter, but in case of mechanical cutting due to the plastic deformation the amorphous structure might change. High-energy laser beam technology can provide a solution to this. Conventional CO2 lasers and other continuous-wave laser technologies are inadequate because they introduce too much heat into the structure of the material. This problem can be solved by cutting with a femtosecond laser pulses, so the microstructure and the surface of the cutting side do not change. This allows the raw material magnetic properties to be preserved for use. In this paper, different femtosecond laser cutting parameters are presented, as well as, the results of the samples magnetization after the cut.