Drilling of steel sheet

A method of laser treating grain-oriented, flat electromagnetic silicon-steel sheet comprising the steps:

• (a) cold rolling silicon-steel into a sheet and annealing the sheet to produce a grain-oriented structure having a plurality of magnetic domains, and then
• (b) laser drilling a plurality of closely spaced holes having diameters of from 0.02 mm to 0.20 mm through the entire thickness of the silicon-steel sheet, where the laser drilling is effective to subdivide the magnetic domains through the volume of the sheet, reducing watt-loss properties of the silicon-steel sheet while retaining the flatness of the sheet, and then
• (c) annealing the flat laser drilled silicon-steel sheet, at a temperature over 700.degree. C. to relieve stress in the sheet without substantially affecting the domain subdivision or the flatness of the sheet.

A method of treating steel sheet having a plurality of magnetic domains, characterized in drilling a plurality of closely spaced, small holes through the entire thickness of the steel sheet, to form additional domain walls and subdivide said magnetic domains wherein the drilled holes are in rows transverse to the direction of rolling of the sheet, with hole spacing, center to center, in each row of from 0.40 mm to 3.2 mm, and hole spacing, center to center, between each row of from 5 mm to 7 mm, where the holes have diameters of from 0.02 mm to 0.20 mm.

A method of treating steel sheet having a plurality of magnetic domains, characterized in laser-drilling a plurality of closely spaced, small holes through the entire thickness of the steel sheet, to form additional domain walls and subdivide said magnetic domains wherein the laser used to drill the holes is selected from a Neodymium-YAG or CO.sub.2 laser utilizing pulse widths of from 75 .mu.sec to 300 .mu.sec, and the holes cause propagation of additional domain walls.