Investigation on Visibility of Drilled Hole in Laser Micro-drilling of Multi-layered Artificial Skin

A multi-layered artificial skin is mainly consisted of three layers of silicone elastomer, print paper, and resin plate. Sealing of facial defects with the multi-layered artificial skin causes perspired water from the surface of missing parts, which results in insanitary conditions to the skin surface. Therefore, the laser micro-drilling using nanosecond and picosecond pulsed laser was investigated to provide the breathability for multi-layered artificial skin without human eye’s recognition of drilled holes, which can satisfy both the breathability and aesthetic problems. The visibility of drilled hole was affected by the pitch distance of drilled holes, and its visibility decreased with increasing the pitch distance. A small color difference measured using a colorimeter led to the low visibility, and laser micro-drilling with small color difference is effective to obtain the breathable multi-layered artificial skin with low visibility of drilled holes, which can improve the breathability for the multi-layered artificial skin.