Study on the fabrication of titanium surface texture by nanosecond laser and its wettability

Laser processing technology can produce various types of surface textures on material. In order to investigate the effect of surface texture type processed by laser on the wettability, line, grid and spot patterns are fabricated on titanium surface based on nanosecond laser processing technology. Then surface morphology, water contact angle, roughness and chemical composition of the processed titanium surface are analyzed by scanning electron microscope, contact angle measuring device, surface analyzer and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, respectively. It is found that the roughness of titanium surfaces processed by nanosecond laser increases significantly compared with that of the unprocessed titanium surface, while the surface contact angles of the processed titanium surfaces are all less than 90°. As time goes on, the chemical composition variation of ablated titanium surface results in the change of material surface free energy, which leads to a general increase of the surface contact angle. Finally, the surface contact angle is almost unchanged once the chemical composition of titanium surface reaches steady state. For each type of surface texture, surface contact angle increases as the roughness rises. The surface contact angles of processed titanium surfaces with line, grid and spot patterns can be 157.2°, 153.1° and 134.6°, which verifies the possibility of wettability change of titanium from hydrophilicity to hydrophobicity