High period frequency LIPSS emerging on 304 stainless steel under the irradiation of femtosecond laser double-pulse trains

Abstract

In this work, we used femtosecond laser double-pulse trains to produce laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) on 304 stainless steel. Surprisingly, a novel type of periodic structure was discovered, which, to the best of our knowledge, is the first in literature. We surmised that the cause for this novel LIPSS was related to the weak energy coupling of subpulses when the intrapulse delay was longer than the thermal relaxation time of stainless steel. Furthermore, we found that the fluence combination and arrival sequence of subpulses in a double-pulse train also influenced LIPSS morphology.