With a combination of high average power, high energy pulses, and high repetition rates our laser systems offer some of the fastest laser paint removal available.
The Advantages of Higher Pulse Energy
With a high laser peak power, it’s possible to use much larger laser spot sizes, allowing much faster paint removal than lower power laser systems. In many cases we can avoid removing layer by layer in a top-down ablative approach by using a detachment method which transmits laser energy through the media and activates imperfections at the interface between paint and substrate. The impurities are energized rapidly, creating small plasma events at the interface between the paint and substrate. If the beam spot size is large enough the plasma sites combine to generate a small shock wave, and immense localized pressure as the plasma expands.
If enough of these individual imperfection sites are activated simultaneously with a very large spot, such as we’re able to because of our very high peak power, you can get enough of these individual pressure sites to work together. With a large laser spot and high energy, enough plasma sites are activated to create a pressure wave that physically detaches the paint from the substrate without having to rely solely on ablating it from the top down – and paint comes off in flakes instead of being burned away.
This method is especially effective on light colored and semi-transparent paints where there isn’t a lot of inherent absorption in the paint itself. The laser wavelength transmits particularly well through these types of paint, allowing rapid laser detachment.
So, the paint is ejected off of the surface via the creation of the small shock wave. We’re able to do this on a pulse by pulse basis while also ablating material from the top down, making high pulse energy Vulcan i1600e the fastest laser paint removal system available.
