The Effect of Dimple Overlap on Wettability and Corrosion Resistance of Laser-Textured Stainless Steel

During the laser surface texturing process, scanning overlap is usually misused, because it cannot only be dimple overlap, but also can be laser spot overlap. Experiments were conducted to investigate the relationship between laser spot overlap and dimple overlap during laser surface texturing. Moreover, the effect of dimple overlap on the laser textured microstructures, wettability, and corrosion performances of stainless steel was analyzed. The results have shown that, due to changing radiation conditions, the dimple diameter and dimple overlap varied in a non-linear way with the increase in laser spot overlap. Furthermore, the variation of dimple overlap rather than laser spot overlap had a direct effect on roughness, wettability, and corrosion resistance. When the dimple overlap was greater than 55%, the surface reached the superhydrophobic state and the maximum apparent contact angle was 162.6°. When the dimple overlap was 83.52%, due to passivation layer formed by laser remelting deposition and oxides compaction, corrosion current density was 2.8 × 10−8 A·cm−2, which was 4% of the original value. Consequently, it was determined that it is easier to control the surface roughness, wettability, and corrosion resistance via dimple overlap rather than laser spot overlap in laser surface texturing process