Generation of Modified Wettability Metallic Surfaces by Short Pulse Lasers

Abstract

The current availability of lasers with characteristic pulse lengths ranging from ns to fs has provided a unique frame in which the development of laser generated microstructures has been made possible for very diverse kinds of materials and applications. At the same time, the development of the appropriate laser processing workstations granting the appropriate precision and repeatibility of the respective laser interaction processesin line with the characteristic dimension features required in the microstructured samples has definitively consolidated laser surface microstructuring as a reference domain nowadays unavoidable for the design and manufacturing of current use microsystem: MEMSs, fluidic devices, advanced sensors, biomedical devices, etc., are all among the most well-know developments of the micromanufacturing technology. Completing the broad spectrum of applications developed for the generation of geometrical features on a subtrate with specific functional purposes, a relatively new, emerging class of laser microstructuring techniquesis finding an important niche of application in the generation of physically structured surfaces (particularly of metallic materials) with specific contact, friction and wear functionalities, for whose generation the concourse of laser sources is being found as an appropriate tool. In this paper, the application of laser sources with emission in the UV and at ns time regime to the surface structuration of metal surfaces (specifically Al) for the modification of their wetability properties is described as an attractive application basic for the generation of self-cleaning properties of extended functional surfaces.