Pulsed laser surface modification for heat treatment and nano-texturing on biometal surface

The laser surface modification has been reported for its functional applications for improving tribological performance, wear resistance, hardness, and corrosion property. In most of these applications, continuous wave lasers and pulsed lasers were used for surface melting, cladding, alloying. Since flexibility in processing, refinement of microstructure and controlling the surface properties, technology utilizing lasers has been used in a number of fields. Especially, femtosecond laser has great benefits compared with other lasers because its pulsed width is much shorter than characteristic time of thermal diffusion, which leads to diminish heat affected zone. Moreover, laser surface engineering has been highlighted as an effective tool for micro/nano structuring of materials in the bio application field. In this study, we applied femtosecond and nanosecond pulsed laser to treat biometals, such as Mg, Mg alloy, and NiTi alloy, by heating to improve corrosion properties and functionalize their surface controlling cell response as implantable biomedical devices.