Wetting angle stability of steel surface structures after laser treatment

In this work, we have used a nanosecond pulsed fiber laser to modify the wettability characteristics of AISI 430 steel. For this, various surface morphologies were created on the samples by laser irradiation with different overlapping and intensity parameters. Immediately upon laser treatment, all the structured samples acquired either hydrophilic or superhydrophilic wetting angles. All the samples were also analyzed with XRD. Then, laser-treated samples were kept in ambient air and/or low-temperature annealing was applied to reach hydrophobic surface properties. Interestingly, these surfaces returned back practically to their initial wetting state by cleaning in an ultrasonic bath. The obtained results are analyzed based on the existing wettability models.