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On December 4th, 2020, during a partly on-line session, Luigi Capuano successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled “Laser micro/nanoprocessing and subsequent chemical etching of sapphire for surface and bulk functionalization” and was awarded the degree of Doctor.

Luigi carried out his work at the Chair of Laser Processing at the University of Twente, under the supervision of prof. Gert-willem Römer and dr. Matthias Feinaeugle. Committee members were prof. Antonio Ancona (University West Sweden and University of Bari, Italy), prof. Bulgakova (HiLASE Centre, Institute of Physics AS CR, Czech Republic), prof. Gardeniers (University of Twente) and prof. García Blanco (University of Twente). The now Dr. Capuano was an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) of the Laser4Fun project. The public defense ceremony took place partly on-line at the University of Twente and the audience could “attend” the event partly through a video stream.

We congratulate Luigi with this achievement!

Links

• Summary of the work of Luigi Capuano
• Video in which Luigi Capuano explains laser processing og sapphire and its applications

Luigi Capuano an Early Stage Researcher (ESR), will defend his PhD-thesis on December 4th, starting at 12:30 o’clock partly on-line and partly in room 4 of the Waaier building of the University of Twente in The Netherlands. Attendance of the latter is for invitees only. Supervised by prof.dr.ir. Gert-willem Römer and Dr.ir. Matthias Feinaeugle, Luigi carried out most of his work at the Chair of Laser Processing at the University of Twente. Below is a summary of the work and results of Luigi.

Summary

Synthetic sapphire (a-Al₂O₃) is a hard, transparent and mostly inert material. Because of its unique physical and chemical properties it is employed in many fields of technology. It is quite common, for example, to find sapphire in modern smartphones and watches. Crystalline sapphire can be processed using several techniques. Typical processing methods are: mechanical sawing/dicing, dry etching, wet etching and laser processing. In contrast with the other methods, material processing through lasers is fast, precise and flexible in terms of different materials and geometries. In this thesis, a two-step processing sequence to fabricate microstructures in/on sapphire substrates is presented and discussed. This two-step technique consists of ultra-short (typically picosecond or femtosecond) pulsed laser irradiation and subsequent chemical etching of sapphire. The radiation of focused ultra-short laser pulses can trigger non-linear effects in the material resulting in the material modification of sapphire. In particular, in the affected focal region of the laser beam, the molecular structure can be transformed from crystalline to amorphous. While crystalline sapphire is very inert and resistant to most chemical etchants, amorphous Al₂O₃ is reactive and can be selectively etched, permitting to create empty structures in sapphire which may be used for example as microfluidic channels. The method is still not fully exploited in industry due to several unresolved scientific and practical issues. The main objective of this thesis is to address some of these issues in order to achieve an optimized processing technique. To that end, first the physical phenomena governing laser-material interaction of subsurface laser processing of sapphire are studied and analysed. This is needed because, due to the complexity of these phenomena, the effect of processing conditions on the final structures is not yet fully understood. Therefore, a model is presented, which is used to simulate the interaction between the laser light and the sapphire during and directly after the ultrashort laser-pulse duration. The laser absorption phenomena considered in the model are: free electron absorption, multiphoton absorption, tunneling ionization, avalanche ionization, recombination of carriers, diffusion of carriers and heat diffusion. A main discovery from the simulations is that avalanche ionization plays a major role in the modification of the material. In fact, until the avalanche ionization is triggered inside sapphire, the other absorption mechanisms induce only a slight increase in the temperature of the lattice of sapphire. Moreover, a “shielding” effect was identified. That is, locations at which the laser energy is absorbed are also the locations at which free electrons are generated. In turn these free electrons absorb more laser energy, which “shield” lower regions of the material from the laser beam. To understand the effect of laser-processing conditions and, in order to establish optimized laser parameters (such as: laser pulse energy, laser pulse repetition rate, laser pulse duration and focal depth below the surface) to obtain uniform amorphous structures in sapphire, experimental analysis was performed using a picosecond laser source, as well as a femtosecond laser source. Several structures are presented and discussed produced in the bulk and on the surface of sapphire. It was determined that femtosecond pulses (230 fs) are best suited for the hybrid method of processing. Moreover, it was found that, there is a specific processing window at which the structures obtained show less cracks as well as uniform amorphized sapphire regions. The laser intensity must be high enough (> 10¹³  to 10¹⁴ W/cm²) to amorphize the material but, if an excessive intensity is used, the material cracks. To obtain an uniform and undivided amorphous volume, the laser pulse repetition rate must be at least 100 kHz, but, if a repetition rate higher than 1 MHz is used, the material breaks. Finally, the effect of two different selective etchants on the final morphology of the empty/hollow structures obtained after the etching phase is studied. Hydrofluoric acid (50% stagnant solution at room temperature) is the most used etchant in this thesis. The hollow/empty structures obtained after etching in this etchant are identical to the shape of the amorphized regions before etching (that is, the crystalline material is not noticeably etched). The use of a mixture of sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid (H₂SO₄ + H₃PO₄) at 180°C to etch the structures obtained with this technique, results not only in the fast etching of the amorphized material, but also in anisotropic etching of crystalline sapphire. A series of different structures were fabricated on the surface and in the bulk of sapphire to demonstrate the potential of the anisotropic etching of sapphire. The structures were analysed before etching and after several etching periods. The anisotropic etching of the crystalline sapphire of the modifications revealed structures showing well-defined geometrical shapes (trapezohedrons and tetrahedrons) and an etching-induced periodic pattern.

During an on-line session on October 16th, 2020, Marek Mezera successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled “Picosecond laser-induced periodic surface structures – Progress strategies for metals, silicon and polymers” and was awarded the degree of Doctor.

The work was carried out at the Chair of Laser Processing at the University of Twente, under the supervision of prof. Gert-willem Römer and dr. Dave Matthews. Committee members were prof. Koopman (University of Twente), prof. Lasagni (Technical University Dresden, Germany), prof. Li (University of Manchester, UK), dr. Bonse (BAM, Germany), prof. Akkerman (University of Twente) and prof. van der Heide (University of Twente). The now Dr. Mezera was an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) of the Laser4Fun project. The public defense ceremony took place on-line at the University of Twente and the audience could “attend” the event partly through a video stream.

We congratulate Marek with this achievement!

Links

• Press release (16 oct. 2020): UT research promotes the start of industrial exploitation of LIPSS
• Summary of the work of Marek Mezera
• Video in which Marek Mezera explains LIPSS and their applications

On September 18th, 2020, Vittorio Vercillo successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled “Durable laser patterned metal surfaces with enhanced icephobic properties for aerospace applications” and was awarded the degree of Doctor.

The work was carried out at Airbus Central Research & Technology, as well as at the Technical University Dresden, both in Germany, under the supervision of Dr. Elmar Bonaccurso and Prof. Dr. Andrés Lasagni. The now Dr.-Ing. Vercillo, was an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) of the Laser4Fun project. The public defense ceremony took place with “closed doors” at the Institute of Manufacturing Science and Engineering (IF) of TU Dresden (Germany), with the audience following the event through a video stream.

We congratulate Vittorio with this achievement!

Summary PhD thesis

Ice accreting on external aircraft surfaces due to the impact of supercooled water droplets can negatively affect the aerodynamic performance and reduce the operational capability. Therefore, it must be prevented. Icephobic surfaces capable of reducing the adhesion strength of ice to a surface and to reduce or delay the ice accretion represent a promising technology to support thermal or mechanical ice protection systems. Icephobicity is similar to hydrophobicity in several aspects, and therefore superhydrophobic surfaces embody a straightforward solution to the icing problem. Short/ultra-short pulsed laser treatments have been proposed as a viable technology to generate superhydrophobic properties on metallic surfaces. However, it has not yet been verified if such surfaces are generally icephobic in representative icing conditions encountered by aircraft, or if they need to have additional properties to effectively tackle icing. The research investigates the icephobic properties of laser-treated surfaces of alloys commonly used for aerospace components. Aluminium Alloy AA2024 and Titanium alloy Ti6Al4V surfaces were textured with Direct Laser Writing (DLW), Direct Laser Interference Patterning (DLIP) and Laser-Induced Periodic Surface Structures (LIPSS), using pulse durations from the femtosecond to the nanosecond regime. Altogether, the research advances the knowledge in surface micro-nanostructuring for aerospace applications, addressing the characteristics and limitations of several laser technologies in order to choose the most convenient manufacturing approach.

On September 4th, 2020, the Early Stage Researcher Sabri Alamri, from the Laser4Fun project, successfully defended his thesis for the degree of Doctor.

The work titled “Advanced microstructuring strategies of polymers using Direct Laser Interference Patterning” was carried out at Technical University Dresden and the Fraunhofer IWS, both in Germany, under the supervision of Professor Andres Lasagni.

We congratulate Sabri on his achievement!

Last June, the SAE International Conference on Icing of Aircraft, Engines, and Structures took place in Minneapolis (USA). New trends, new knowledge, and new solutions were discussed in more than 160 oral presentations that dive into every aspect of icing. Vittorio Vercillo, an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) in the Laser4Fun project, was awarded of the Outstanding Oral Presentation Award, for his contribution “Icephobic Properties of Laser-Treated Superhydrophobic Surfaces”.

More info at: https://www.sae.org/participate/awards/sae-engineering-meetings-board-outstanding-oral-presentation-award

On August 20th, 2019, Jean-Michel Romano successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled “Laser-based manufacturing routes for functionalizing surfaces” and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

The work was carried out at the University of Birmingham (UK) under the supervision of Prof. Stefan Dimov. The now Dr. Jean-Michel Romano, was an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) of the Laser4Fun project. The examination board was composed by Prof. Lin Li, Director of Laser Processing Research Centre at the University of Manchester and Dr. Nan Gao, Lecturer of Bio-medical Engineering at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Birmingham.

We congratulate Jean-Michel with this achievement!

Summary PhD thesis

Robust functional surfaces are of a growing industrial interest for a range of optical, easy-to-clean, anti-icing and non-fouling applications. At the same time, nature is a great source of inspiration for micro/nano-scale surface structures with tailored functional properties. There are a number of competing technologies for producing such structures but ultrashort laser processing is emerging as one of the most promising for fabricating bio-inspired surfaces. However, the technology has limitations and its capabilities have to be augmented to achieve the required high-throughput in manufacturing products that incorporate functional surface topographies. Therefore, this research investigates a promising process chain that combines synergistically the capabilities of laser texturing with complementary surface engineering and replication technologies. Several large-area laser texturing techniques are investigated, namely Direct Laser Writing (DLW), Laser-Induced Periodic Surface Structures (LIPSS) and microlenses-induced Photonic Jet (PJ) texturing. The research advances the knowledge in laser-based surface functionalization and also in factors affecting the functional response and durability of laser structured surfaces.

Link

https://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/9740/1/Romano2019PhD.pdf

On July 9-10th, Jean-Michel Romano (ESR) presented part of the results of the Laser4fun project at the Polymer Process Engineering PPE’19. The event was organised by the Polymer IRC in Bradford (UK).

Gagandeep Singh Joshi, an Early Stage Researcher (ESR), defended his PhD-thesis on March 19, 2019 at 12:30 pm, in the Physics department at the University of Bari, Italy. Supervised by prof.dr. Antonio Ancona, a Senior Researcher at Institute of photonics and nanotechnology, National Research Council of Italy (CNR-IFN, Bari), and prof.dr. Giuseppe Carbone, Professor and Head of the Department of Mechanics, Mathematics and Management of the polytechnic university of Bari, Italy. Below are some pictures of the cermony as well as an English and Italian summary of the work and results of Gagandeep.

 

English summary

Over the past decades, surface texturing has shown to be an emerging technique to control the friction and wear. It consists of fabricating a pattern of small dimples or grooves on the surface of the materials in a very controllable way, which causes the change in the surface topography. Lasers with their excellent beam quality promised noticeable advantages and improvements in high precision and material processing at the microscale. In order to control the friction, it is important to understand the mechanisms which occur during the conformal or non-conformal contact in dry and lubricated conditions.
In the present thesis, I am dealing with laser surface texturing to improve the tribological properties of the technological steels. I have fabricated the pad based on a design developed previously to my thesis, it consists of an anisotropic and non-uniform texture to maximize the thrust load of a square pad prototype. The experimental results, showed that the non-uniform micro-texture largely affects the friction characteristics of the contact. In particular, in agreement with the BTH predictions, the tribo-system shows friction properties that are strongly sensitive to the direction of the sliding speed, as a consequence of the micro-fluid dynamics which are designed to occur only in a specific sliding direction. Results suggest that the joint action of virtual prototyping (BTH lubrication theory) and ultrafast laser micro-prototyping can lead to unconventional and impressive results in terms of enhanced or tailored contact mechanics properties of the generic lubricated tribopair.
I have also investigated the effects of the micro surface texturing in the lubricated non-conformal point contacts. In this investigation, I have focused on a regime poorly investigated in literature, where the contact area and the micro-holes have a comparable size. In particular, I found that, depending on the void ratio, a significant friction reduction or, on the contrary, a deterioration of the frictional performances can affect the boundary and mixed lubrication regimes. This was due to the simultaneous occurrence of two competing effects. One was related to the stress intensification, due to the presence of the micro-hole edges on the contact topography, which leads to a consequent increase in wear and friction. On the other hand, micro-texture may play a positive role in the friction optimization given the possibility, offered by the micro-holes, to entrap wear debris and, then, to preserve a smoother interface between the contacting pairs.
Investigation of the wettability and spreading behavior of the lubricant on laser textured surfaces helps to understand more about its tribological performance. The tribological behavior of different textured surfaces have been studied using mineral oil as lubricant. Results show that textured surfaces have friction reduction un- der different lubrication regimes as compared to un-textured surfaces. Furthermore, static contact angle and spreading were evaluated with water, mineral oil and pure glycerol. Every considered texture showed a slight reduction of contact angle for the three liquids, compared with the polished surface. Mineral oil exhibited a more persistent spreading over the un-textured and textured surfaces, and more consistency in friction reduction. Mineral oil shows compatibility for low and high dynamic velocities in the case of textured and un-textured samples, whereas, glycerol is beneficial at specific velocities.

Italian summary

Nei decenni passati, la micro-tessitura superficiale ha dimostrato di essere una tecnica emergente per il controllo dell’attrito e dell’usura. Tale tecnica consiste nel fabbricare sulla superficie del materiale ed in maniera estremamente riproducibile un motivo formato da piccoli buchi e scanalature che causano il cambiamento della topografia superficiale. Le sorgenti laser, grazie alla qualità eccellente dei loro fasci, hanno permesso di ottenere notevoli vantaggi e miglioramenti nella precisione delle lavorazioni su scala microscopica dei materiali . Per controllare l’attrito è importante capire i meccanismi che intervengono durante il contatto conforme e non conforme sia in condizioni asciutte che lubrificate.
Nel presente lavoro di tesi, la tecninca del “texturing” superficiale al laser è stata utilizzata per migliorare le proprietà tribologiche dell’acciaio tecnologico. Ho fabbricato un cuscinetto seguendo il design sviluppato precedentemente alla mia tesi che consisteva in una tessitura anisotropica e non uniforme finalizzata a massimizzare il carico di spinta di un prototipo di cuscinetto quadrato. I risultati sperimentali hanno mostrato che le microtessiture non uniformi influenzano consistentemente le caratteristiche dell’attrito del contatto. In particolare, in accordo con le previsioni del modello teorico BTH, il sistema tribologico mostra proprietà di attrito fortemente dipendenti dalla direzione della di velocità di scorrimento; questa è chiaramente una conseguenza dell’effetto micro-fluidodinamico che, come da progetto, intervenire solo in una specifica direzione di scorrimento. I risultati suggeriscono che l’azione combinata della prototipazione virtuale (teoria della lubrificazione BTH) e della micro-prototipazione laser ultraveloce può portare a risultati impressionanti e non convenzionali in termini di miglioramento o adattamento delle proprietà meccaniche del contatto di un generico sistema tribologico lubrificato.
Inoltre, ho anche analizzato gli effetti della micro tessitura superficiale nei punti di contatto non conforme lubrificato. In questo studio, ho focalizzato l’attenzione su un regime poco trattato in letteratura, in cui l’area di contatto e i micro-fori hanno dimensioni confrontabili. In particolare, ho riscontrato che, a seconda della percetuale di vuoti, una significativa riduzione dell’attrito o, al contrario, un suo aumento possono influenzare i regimi di lubrificazione misto e “boundary”.
Questo è dovuto all’incidenza simultanea di due effetti contrastanti; quello negativo è relativo all’intensificazione dello stress, dovuto alla presenza di bordi dei micro-fori nella zona di contatto, che causa un conseguente incremento dell’usura e dell’attrito. L’altro positivo è collegato alla possibilità di ridurre l’attrito a seguito di una ottimizzazione della geometria della testurizzazione microscopisca; i fori micorscopici infatti possono intrappolare i detriti derivanti dall’usura e, quindi, preservare una superficie più liscia all’interfaccia della coppia di contatto.
L’analisi del comportamento di bagnabilità e diffusione del lubrificante su una superficie testurizzata al laser, aiuta a capire di più riguardo alle sue performance tribologiche. I comportamenti tribologici di differenti superfici testurizzate sono stati studiati usando come lubrificante l’olio minerale. I risultati mostrano che le superfici testurizzate, a differenza di quelle non- texturizzate, consentono una riduzione dell’attrito in diversi regimi di lubrificazione. Inoltre l’angolo di contatto statico e la diffusione del lubrificante sono stati valutati usando come campioni l’acqua, l’olio minerale ed il gricerolo puro. Ogni tessitura esaminata, se confrontata con una superficie liscia, ha mostrato una leggera riduzione dell’angolo di contatto per ciascuno dei tre liquidi utilizzati. L’olio minerale presenta una diffusione più persistente sia su superfici testurizzate che non, insieme ad una riduzione più consistente dell’attrito.
Mentre l’olio minerale è compatibile sia per velocità di scorrimento basse che alte e sia nel caso di campioni testurizzati che non texturizzati, il glicerolo produce delle prestazioni migliori solo nel caso di specifici valori di velocità.