ORNL has setup an Advanced Laser Structuring Facility in which interfering high-power laser beams provide a 2-dimensional periodic high-speed thermal or chemical treatment to surfaces. This leads to a direct structuring with perfect long-range ordered periodicity. Up to 50,000 lines or 2 billion dots can be created at a surface within a fraction of a second turning ordinary surfaces into multi-functional composites and chemical structures. The feature sizes are nanoscaled, the feature spacing ranges from 0.2 to 50 µm while the structured area of a single shot lays in the range of mm² to cm².
With this system it is possible to functionalize material‘s surfaces by manipulation of the topography, the phase-microstructure, the texture, the residual stress situation and the formation of new phases being utilized in automotive and industrial applications and for tissue engineering and biomedical devices. |
