Laser-liquid composite micromachining technologies: A review of research progress

Laser micromachining technology is widely used in various industrial fields because of its high machining accuracy, high machining flexibility, and low machining cost. However, the existence of thermal effects and recast layers on the machining surface has limited the further development of this technology. To improve the machining quality, laser-liquid composite micromachining technologies flourish, which has achieved brilliant results in recent years. Laser-liquid composite micromachining technology achieves improvement in surface quality and machining efficiency through the effects of cooling, flushing, dissolution and so on. This paper reviews the current research status of laser-liquid micromachining, mainly including the water guided laser machining technology, underwater laser ablation technology, water jet assisted laser machining technology, and laser-electrochemical composite machining. The mechanism of composite machining and the material removal process under the coupling of multiple energy fields are discussed. The existing problems and future development trends in various composite machining technologies are summarized.