Laser–induced nanopillar structures around particles

Abstract

In biomedical engineering, laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSSs) have been extensively applied where laser irradiation of selective laser-melted (SLMed) samples to generate LIPSS-covered free-form samples is a promising technique. Using this technique, nanopillars around a spheroidal particle that was not molten during the SLM process have been formed, indicating that nanopillars can be induced around spheroidal particles on a material surface. This study investigates the mechanism of LIPSS and nanopillar formation on SLMed and uneven surfaces experimentally and through finite-difference time-domain simulation. A 50 Hz picosecond laser with 1064 nm fixed wavelengt, 20 ps pulse duration, 0.5 J/cm2 laser fluence, and 400 μm/s scanning speed was employed to irradiate Ti6Al4V alloy samples with 100 μs exposure time. The results show that induced nanopillars form a concentric area around a single particle with curvature radius approximately twice the particle radius. The simulated electric field intensity is ripple-like distributed for particle size beyond 5 μm, with approximately 1 μm periodic length and is close to the laser wavelength. This matches the experimental results from scanning electron microscopy for 800–00 nm LIPSS periodic length, indicating that desired nanostructures can be generated by appropriately designing the surface topography before laser irradiation.