Abstract
An excimer laser beam is focused (1–3 J cm 2) on to an aluminium alloy (AlSi7Mg) surface target in a nitrogen atmosphere (760 Torr). A nitride layer (5 mm 2 area per laser spot) is obtained by nitrogen diffusion in the bulk with a depth of several micrometres during the induced laser-plasma time interaction on the surface. For chemical, structural and tribological analyses, 1 × 1 cm 2 samples are processed by scanning the laser beam on the surface, either by locating the laser-plasma spots side by side or by overlapping them. Different experimental conditions are investigated (laser fluence, laser pulse number, overlapping rate of laser-plasma spots), and then various analysis such as NRA, XRD, GIXD, SEM, EDS are performed. When a step-by-step process is used, the nitrogen concentration appears to be inhomogeneous depending on the surface location, and the surface roughness is too high for further applications. Nevertheless, the overlapping process yields homogeneous chemical composition layers with smooth surfaces. Tests are performed to characterise the friction behaviour of the treated surface under fretting conditions, and tribological results clearly indicate the best experimental conditions to be used for the enhancement of mechanical properties.
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