Laser Ablation

The process of removing material from a solid surface by irradiating it with a laser beam. At low laser flux, the material is heated by the absorbed laser energy and evaporates or sublimates. In printed documents, this results in an image, number or code being created by burning the ink from a solid inked area, thus ending up with white (non-inked areas) alphanumeric text, barcodes or custom codes. In plastic objects, the laser applies a pulse of high pressure to the surface underneath it as it expands.