An optodynamic determination of the depth of laser-drilled holes by the simultaneous detection of ultrasonic waves in the air and in the workpiece.

A sufficiently powerful pulsed-laser beam can be used to 'drill' a hole in a stainless-steel workpiece. Here we present a real-time method for determining the depth of such a hole produced by multi-pulse laser drilling with a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. The developed experimental setup allowed us to detect the laser-induced ultrasonic waves in the surrounding air and in the workpiece simultaneously by means of a probe-beam-deflection method and a piezoelectric transducer. Our optodynamic approach involved an analysis of these ultrasonic waves in order to determine the depth of the hole at any stage of the process. The increasing depth of the hole and its maximum extent were estimated from changes in the propagation time of the ultrasonic waves traveling from the bottom of the hole to both detectors. Measurements of the maximum hole depth were compared with the predictions of a theoretical model and they were found to be in a good agreement.