ABSTRACT
Approximately 10 years ago articles began appearing in the scientific literature describing the ablation, or vaporization, of polyimides by excimer lasers [1,2]. Those early studies clearly showed that the intense ultraviolet pulses produced by excimer devices caused clean etching of the material with micron-scale precision. Because of the importance of polyimides in numerous applications and the difficulty in etching these polymers by other means, such findings prompted intensive further research over the ensuing years. That body of work is the subject of this chapter.
