Over the past decade, it has become increasingly important for manufacturers to permanently mark the parts that they make for identification purposes.  Such as date codes, serialization, logos, lot numbers and more.  Chemical etching has long been the leading technology for identifying parts.  Laser marking process, however, provides significant advantages over chemical etching.  Laser Marking is environmentally friendly and very flexible means to optimize the marking process to specific requirements.

Chemical etching is a multi-step procedure, limited to conductive metals.  In the chemical etching process, a stencil is created and positioned on the part. Chemical electrolyte is applied with a pad and an electrical current is used to produce the mark.  The part must be dried before another chemical is used to dissolve any electrolyte residue.