**6. Laser texturing**

Laser texturing is a process that alters a material surface property by modifying its texture and roughness. The laser beam creates micro patterns on the surface through laser ablation, removing layers with micrometer precision and perfect repeatability. Typical patterns include dimples, grooves, and free forms. Laser surface texturing can be used to improve properties like adherence, wettability, electrical and thermal conductivity, and friction. For example, the method can increase surface adherence before applying common coatings like adhesives, paint or ceramic. Laser texturing can also be used to prepare surfaces for thermal spray coating and laser cladding as well as to improve the performance of mechanical seals. Surface treatments like abrasive blasting and chemical etching processes need

**Figure 21.** *Schematic of laser texturing process.*

#### **Figure 22.**

*Schematic of laser surface texture dimensions: (a) circle, (b) oval.*

consumables like steel grits and acid to texture surfaces. Unlike those treatments, the laser texturing process functions without consumables. This results in low operating costs, low maintenance, and improved health and safety in the workplace.

**81**

*Laser Surface Modification of Materials DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94439*

a = pitch, b = diameter, and c = height.

improve the performance of the components.

for the financial support to carry out this work.

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

**7. Conclusion**

Operators will not need to handle chemicals, wear protective equipment, and stop operations to replace consumables. Laser texturing uses laser ablation to selectively remove materials from specific surface areas. By adjusting the laser's parameters, the surface is removed as well as creates different patterns. This typically increases roughness, creating surface textures that can easily lodge adhesives and provide additional anchoring surface. To reach the material's ablation threshold, pulsed lasers concentrate energy to reach a high peak power. Typically, the pulse duration is 100 nanoseconds, and each pulse contains between 0.5 and 1 millijoules. The time required to texture a surface depends on the material, the desired roughness level, and the laser system's output power. The application of laser texturing is in adhesive bonding, mechanical seals, painting and coatings. The laser texturing process is shown in **Figure 21**. The circle and oval shape dimple texturing on metal can be made using a laser and the schematic diagram is shown in **Figure 22a**–**b**. Where,

The new materials have been developed every day to meet the demand of competitive situations. The surface properties of substrate can be improved by a number of methods such as laser surface alterations such as surface hardening, melting, alloying, cladding and texturing in order to improve the mechanical performance and tribological behavior. In this work, the effect of laser process parameters on microstructure, hardness and wear rate of materials have been presented. The laser surface hardening is needed to high stressed components namely gear teeth, gears, shafts, camshafts, axles, cylinder liners and exhaust valves. The laser surface melting can be adopted in biomedical alloys, sport cars and power plants made of stainless steel, magnesium alloy and superalloys. The locomotive, aerospace and structural components made of aluminum alloys, titanium alloys and magnesium alloys have required the laser surface alloying to improve the surface properties of metals. The repaired and refurbishment components such as internal combustion engine parts, gas turbine, turbine blades and tools are highly needed the laser surface cladding to improve the surface properties of metals. The texturing on material is used to increase the tribological characteristics of materials resulting in improved surface roughness, wettability, improve load capacity, wear rates, lubricating lifetime and reduce friction coefficient. Hence, the laser based surface modification techniques can be adopted to

The authors wish to thank the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan ROC

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest in the work.

### *Laser Surface Modification of Materials DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94439*

Operators will not need to handle chemicals, wear protective equipment, and stop operations to replace consumables. Laser texturing uses laser ablation to selectively remove materials from specific surface areas. By adjusting the laser's parameters, the surface is removed as well as creates different patterns. This typically increases roughness, creating surface textures that can easily lodge adhesives and provide additional anchoring surface. To reach the material's ablation threshold, pulsed lasers concentrate energy to reach a high peak power. Typically, the pulse duration is 100 nanoseconds, and each pulse contains between 0.5 and 1 millijoules. The time required to texture a surface depends on the material, the desired roughness level, and the laser system's output power. The application of laser texturing is in adhesive bonding, mechanical seals, painting and coatings. The laser texturing process is shown in **Figure 21**. The circle and oval shape dimple texturing on metal can be made using a laser and the schematic diagram is shown in **Figure 22a**–**b**. Where, a = pitch, b = diameter, and c = height.
