Abstract
This paper reports the femtosecond (fs) laser and picosecond (ps) laser fabrications to create superhydrophilic surfaces. Subsequently, investigations of the surface morphologies and the surface chemistry using EDS, XRD, and FTIR-spectroscopy are carried out. Due to significant variations in the formation of micro-nano structure and molecular compositions, fs laser and ps laser fabricated surfaces exhibited a noteworthy difference in surface wettability by controlling the laser parameters. It is evident from experimental results that ps laser structured surfaces show efficient superhydrophilic nature (0° contact angle with 300 ± 18 ms spreading time) than the fs laser (0° contact angle with 400 ± 18 ms spreading time) due to higher surface roughness factor and surface energy resulted from laser-induced thermalization. Nevertheless, all fabricated surfaces convert from superhydrophilic to superhydrophobic due to chemisorbed hydroxyl (–OH) and C–C(H) functional group contamination. An eco-friendly zeolite (Na-based ZSM-5) coating is used on such ultrafast laser fabricated surfaces to maintain the superhydrophilic property for more than 14 months. The proposed investigation provides an innovative approach for producing long-term stable superhydrophilic metal surfaces, which are useful for water treatment, microfluidics, and heat transfer applications.
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