Plastic
Lasers are not used exclusively for marking metal. On the contrary, today, laser marking is very often used to mark different types of plastic. Currently, the most commonly used plastic is ABS, especially used in automotive and electrical engineering. This material is solely black and it has good versatile features. If there is a requirement to mark the material, there is always high contrast of marking, i.e. marking in white. In order to achieve such results, i tis necessary to setup longer duration of the pulse.
In case of marking other plastic, we can encounter failures and the marking might be very badly visible or can have different colour than needed. Therefore, it is possible to add additives in plastic to promote contrast of laser marking.
For marking of white plastic problems might occur regarding the outer transparent layer which can be often welded by the laser unintentionally. Therefore, it is necessary to use a low-frequency short-pulse laser in order to achieve the optimal result. The reward can be a beautiful dark marking on white background layer.
