Biomimetic surface structures in steel fabricated with femtosecond laser pulses: influence of laser rescanning on morphology and wettability

• Camilo Florian Baron,
• Alexandros Mimidis,
• Daniel Puerto,
• Evangelos Skoulas,
• Emmanuel Stratakis,
• Javier Solis and
• Jan Siegel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2802–2812, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.262

• surface structures; laser rescanning; steel; wettability; Introduction Complex structures found in nature often present properties that are attractive for applications in science and technology. The hydrophobicity found at the lotus leaf surface [1], the exceptional adhesion capability of gecko feet [2

• single scan seems to be limited to these three relatively simple structures. Complex morphologies formed by laser rescanning A viable method to increase the effective number of laser pulses up to hundreds of thousands of laser pulses, while preserving the formation of self-ordered structures, is scanning

• the laser beam many times over the same sample area, i.e., laser rescanning. From a physical point of view, one fundamental difference between a single scan and multiple rescans is that the incident laser pulse during the second and subsequent scans “sees” not only a higher surface roughness, but in