Industrial advancements of recent times explores miniature components for complicated features embedded within, in order to address the requirements of sophisticated Electronics, Biomedical and Nuclear applications. Fiber laser micromachining (FLMM) is an emerging non-traditional laser machining technology for producing micro-nano scale components. High strength and high pitting resistance makes micromachining of SS 201 complex in terms of accomplishing accuracy, difficulty in machining and lesser productivity while working with conventional machining techniques. On deploying FLMM with appropriate process parametric ranges helps to overcome the limitations. This paper presents the investigations carried out the process parameter optimization for machining of SS 201 with FLMM. The output responses like Surface texture (Ra), Heat affected Zone (HAZ), and Metal Removal Rate (MRR) are analyzed using Taguchi (L9 Array) integrated with grey analysis. The varying parameters like MRR, HAZ and Ra are studied using ANOVA. Confirmatory test performed with parameters having optimized values showed an increase in the grey improvement level of 5.198%. SEM images are used to identify high quality micro holes and Surface Roughness was measured by three dimensional surface measurement tester to understand the trend of roughness.

Keywords: Fiber laser micro machining, SS 201, Taguchi, GRA, SEM, 3D roughness.