| Abstract [eng] |
Modern femtosecond lasers are expensive devices and production rates need to be evaluated before they can be introduced into a production line. When using laser ablation, like drilling or milling, process performance can be defined by ablation efficiency and throughput can be defined in terms of ablation rate. One of the growing areas of science and technology using laser machining is the production of bio-inspired functional surfaces. This thesis focused on the study of ultrashort pulsed laser ablation efficiency, material removal rate, machining quality and applications in micromachining and the development of bio-inspired functional surfaces. It has been shown that optimisation of the ablation efficiency automatically improves the quality of the machined surface. A theoretical model of ablation was also developed, which combined both the influence of the drop of the ablation threshold and the influence of the saturation of the dimple depth on the ablation efficiency. Machining with laser bursts has been investigated, which has attracted a lot of attention in the scientific community. Bio-inspired surfaces such as fish scales and shark skin have been produced using laser irradiation. In addition, the fabrication of a three-dimensional double-sided object using layer-by-layer machining was demonstrated. Self-organising structures, such as ripples and nanospikes, were exploited after laser exposure to create a functional steel surface with altered wetting properties. |
