Abstract
Functionally graded materials (FGMs), which possess dual characteristics of two materials, are expected to be useful materials in industry. An excimer laser is one of the powerful processing tool that can be used to reprocess FGMs. To obtain the best possible quality in laser processing, it is necessary to understand the details of the ablation plasma in laser processing. The XeCl excimer laser with a maximum pulse energy of 500 mJ was used. The ablation plasma was observed by a high-speed streak camera. Kaolin-magnetite FGMs were produced by a newly developed layer-accretion method using vacuum filtration followed by consolidation and sintering. The temporal and spatial profiles of the ablation plasma plumes were measured. It was found that the properties of the ablation plasma plumes depended on the kaolin-magnetite content of the FGMs.
