Effect of Microsecond Pulse Laser Modification on Electromagnetic Properties of Grain Oriented Silicon Steel

Abstract

A microsecond pulsed laser beam was used to local magnetic domain modification of electrical grain oriented silicon steel. It was carried out using three different laser pulse regimes: a single pulse laser regime, a multipulse laser regime and a multipulse laser regime with modulation of laser pulses. The laser processing variables were pulse energy and and number of pulses. The samples were tested for nanohardness and coercivity before and after laser treatment. Light optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and magnetic force microscopy were used to observe the cross-sectional profile, surface of the samples, and magnetic domain visualization, respectively. The local laser treatment of grain oriented silicon steel surface has been studied in terms of its influence on the magnetic domains and coercivity. It was found that laser-modified samples showed coercivity improvement in comparison to the non-treated samples. The most significant improvement in coercivity was obtained in the modulated multipulse regime and negligible improvement in the single pulse laser regime. Three main effects responsible for the observed improvement were identified, namely: magnetic domain refinement, influence of number of laser pulses and shape of laser HAZ profile. The present work highlights on differences in the magnetic domain structure, microstructure of the laser modified material and basic electromagnetic and mechanical properties. In present study, the pulse laser surface processing was presented as a useful energy efficient alternative to other techniques e.g. mechanical scribing, electrical discharge scribing, plasma jet scribing, etc. The refined magnetic domains in electrosteels are responsible for the observed low coercivity, which indicates perspective application of the investigated laser modified steels in the power transformer cores with lower core losses.