Imprinting of Micro-/Nano-Textures onto Metals and Alloys with Use of the Laser-Printed DLC-Die

Abstract

This paper focused a two-step procedure to imprint the tailored emblems, patterns, symbols and codes onto the metallic and polymer product surfaces. The laser printing was first used to form these tailored micro-/nano-textures onto a Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) coating die. The DLC film with the thickness of 20 mm and the hardness of 22 GPa was utilized as a mother die. Femtosecond laser printing was used to shape the tailored micro-/nano-textures on this die. Seven emblems such as a star-patterned texture with the maximum depth of 4 mm were just cut into the DLC-die to have color-grating by micro-texturing and surface plasmonic brilliance by nanotexturing. In second, Computer Numerical Control (CNC) – stamping was used to imprint these textures onto the aluminum alloy plate with the thickness of 1 mm. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and three dimensional profilometer were used to investigate the geometric accuracy in this two-step printing procedure. The constituent micro-/nano-textures of each emblem was accurately imprinted onto the aluminum work. The optical properties were also duplicated together with this geometric imprinting.