Laser surface texturing of metallic substrates

A low power AO Q-switched Nd:YAG laser operating at 1064 nm has been used to texture the surface of metallic substrates such as nickel, hastelloy, and aluminum. The substrate surface is uniformly exposed to the laser by using a scan head to raster the focused beam across the substrate surface in a specific pattern. The surface texturing effect is manipulated by appropriate choice of laser power, frequency, scan speed, and focal spot size. Texturing the surface in this manner removes contaminants such as debris, oils, and small scratches and also re-flows the surface layer of the metal. The laser parameters, along with surface melt depth and surface morphology, are being used to provide data for modeling the laser interaction with the metal surface. The discussion of the experimental results and initial modeling calculations will be presented.