>
Laser marking is becoming more and more frequent in industrial applications as they are seen as particularly reliable and provide numerous advantages. Laser marking is extremely robust and also forgery-proof. Its application can also be of a high quality.
Further advantages of plastic laser marking (versus conventional marking technologies) are:
During the laser marking through laser beam exposure, the plastics undergo optical surface changes. A variety of laser media are used here, and these differ in how the laser is generated. A distinction is drawn between gas, dye and solid-state lasers. During the lasering of plastic the result is influenced not only by the type of laser but also by the wavelength used. For most laser marking applications, solid-state lasers such as Nd:YAG, fibre lasers and CO2 lasers are the ideal beam sources.
At Ensinger, successful trials have been performed with the Nd:YAG solid-state laser. This laser is also used very frequently in practice.
Nd:YAG stands for neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet laser. It uses a neodymium-doped YAG crystal as an active medium. The best results were obtained at a wavelength of 1064nm – this is also the one that is most frequently used.
Laser marking is increasingly replacing conventional printing methods. Particularly in the labelling of plastics, laser marking has developed into an established method. Above all, it has become more important in the context of quality assurance and traceability. The plastics are frequently given bar codes, articles or batch numbers for unique identification. Countless applications across all industries benefit from this. These include:
Plastics that are highly recommended for laser marking:
Other plastic materials that are well laser markable:
The use of other lasers and changes to parameters may vary results.