The peak power must be large enough to vaporise the work-
piece. There exists a threshold value of laser beam intensity
below which no melting/evaporation will occur. When a laser
(without gas jet) heats a metal target, the energy absorbed is
conducted into the surrounding colder metal. For steels, if the
absorption rate is low (,10
5
Wcm
−2
, about 2 W for a spot
size of 50 mm in diameter) compared to the rate of conduction,
the target surface will remain below the melting point. At
higher absorption rates, the surface region of the metal will
melt and perhaps begin to vaporise. At even higher absorption
rate (.10
7
Wcm
−2
, about 200 W for a spot size of 50 µmin
diameter), vaporisation becomes the dominant mechanism of
material removal from the target [8]. The calculation of vaporis-
ation energy intensity is referred to in Appendix A. When the
power density becomes too high, however, the gas near the
spot where the laser interacts with the workpiece material is
instantly transformed to plasma. The plasma formation has
been shown to cause some form of material damage such
as microcracks.