Pure Titanium Foil Hybrid Surface Modification Using Ultraviolet Laser Micromachining

This study proposes a hybrid laser method for modifying the surface of a pure titanium foil (thickness: 100 mu m) using nanosecond ultraviolet (UV) laser pulses. Four surface treatment methods, namely nontreatment, microhole drilling, surface milling, and microhole drilling combined with surface milling, were used, and the effects of contact angle, surface energy, roughness, and residual height were studied. The characteristics of the surface-modified foil specimens were systemically analyzed using a three-dimensional confocal laser scanning microscope to measure the surface micrograph and roughness of patterns. The contact angle variations between different droplets on the textured surface were measured using an FTA 188 video contact angle analyzer. In this study, the optimal laser fluence and scanning speed for the laser surface milling process were 56.6 J/cm(2) and 1500 mm/s, respectively, which could provide a contact angle of 12.57 degrees, signifying a foil surface with satisfactory hydrophilic quality. This study successfully used a UV laser combined with a high-speed galvanometric scanning unit to generate different microstructures on the surfaces of pure titanium foil specimens. In the future, the proposed method can be applied for research related to the adhesive quality of biological cells.