Laser Line Scan Modification of Metal and Alloy Surfaces

• Xermán de la Fuente ^[1]
  1. [1] Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Aragón (ICMA-CESIC)
• Localización: TRATERMAT 2019: XVI Congreso Internacional de Tratamientos Térmicos y de Superficie / Iván Cervera González (ed. lit.), 2020, ISBN 978-84-17900-68-7, págs. 27-28
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto Completo Libro
• Resumen

  • Lasers have been used for several decades, since their invention more than 50 years ago, to transform materials. Many of these processes were intelligently envisioned even for the early solid state and gas lasers initially available. Needless to say that ideas went ahead of the time, as electronics, computer science and thus lasers, still needed considerable developments before lasers could become the present tools that are nowadays available in laboratories and industrial processes. Lasers interact with materials in diverse ways, depending on the laser emission characteristics and on the material properties, particularly its surface condition. The most common uses of lasers are based on melting and ablation phenomena. Melting is typically used in metal cutting and welding, while ablation is used in surface structuring and desorption (cleaning), although it would be rather shortsighted to envision lasers as tools which can either only melt or ablate material surfaces. Examples of laser melting and ablation processes will be reviewed in order to highlight essential aspects of how lasers interact with materials, as well as to explore some of the outstanding possibilities that lasers have to offer in terms of qualitative innovations in materials surface processing.