Excimer laser etching

A new etching method has its excimer laser radiation at a wavelength of λ=248nm which will be used for the preparation of metallographic specimens. This method is effective in terms of enhancing the contrast between the different phases in a multiphase metallographic specimen. Controlling the level of contrast involves the increasing or decreasing of the number of laser pulses or by altering the excimer laser energy. Excimer laser etching is only good for a selected area of a specimen as the method undergoes an optical process. The two optical micrographs altered the contrast between different phases by merely varying the number of excimer laser pulses at the same laser power.