Investigations on femtosecond laser-induced surface modification and periodic micropatterning with anti-friction properties on Ti6Al4V titanium alloy

Titanium alloys have a wide application in aerospace industries as it has greater strength and low density, but it has poor tribological properties. To improve its friction and wear performance, in present work, a femtosecond laser is used to directly irradiate the Ti6Al4V titanium alloy surface in air conditioning, which results in localized ablation and the formation of periodic microstructures but also a strong pressure wave, propagating the material inside. Through the optimization of processing parameters, surface modification and periodic micropatterning with effective anti-friction properties were successfully induced on the surface. After a treatment of femtosecond laser-induced surface modification (FsLSM), the surface microhardness was improved by 16.6% and compressive residual stress reached −746 MPa. Besides, laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) with a titanium oxide outer coating were fabricated uniformly on the titanium alloy surface. Rotary ball-on-disk wear experiments revealed that the average coefficient of friction (COF) and wear mass loss of the specimen with FsLSM treatment were largely reduced by 68.9% and 90% as compared to that of untreated specimens, respectively. It was analyzed that the reason for the remarkable wear resistance was attributed to the comprehensive action of the generation of LIPSS, the titanium oxide outer coating, high amplitude compressive residual stress and gradient grain size distribution on the subsurface during the laser surface treatment. Since the findings here are broadly applicable to a wide spectrum of engineering metals and alloys, the present results offer unique pathways to enhancing the tribological performance of materials.