A study of photothermal laser ablation of various polymers on microsecond time scales

To analyze the photothermal ablation of polymers, we designed a temperature measurement setup based on spectral pyrometry. The setup allows to acquire 2D temperature distributions with 1 μm size and 1 μs time resolution and therefore the determination of the center temperature of a laser heating process. Finite element simulations were used to verify and understand the heat conversion and heat flow in the process. With this setup, the photothermal ablation of polystyrene, poly(α-methylstyrene), a polyimide and a triazene polymer was investigated. The thermal stability, the glass transition temperature T(g) and the viscosity above T(g) were governing the ablation process. Thermal decomposition for the applied laser pulse of about 10 μs started at temperatures similar to the start of decomposition in thermogravimetry. Furthermore, for polystyrene and poly(α-methylstyrene), both with a T(g) in the range between room and decomposition temperature, ablation already occurred at temperatures well below the decomposition temperature, only at 30–40 K above T(g). The mechanism was photomechanical, i.e. a stress due to the thermal expansion of the polymer was responsible for ablation. Low molecular weight polymers showed differences in photomechanical ablation, corresponding to their lower T(g) and lower viscosity above the glass transition. However, the difference in ablated volume was only significant at higher temperatures in the temperature regime for thermal decomposition at quasi-equilibrium time scales.