PRAGUE, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Experts from the Czech Republic-based HiLASE laser center announced that a research team from the center has discovered a way to create regular structures on metal surface quickly and accurately by laser, a method that can be effective in areas such as the aircraft industry, local media reported on Monday.
The creation of periodical structures of a submicron size, or smaller than one-thousandth of millimetre, on metal surface is of a crucial importance in selected areas. Such structures are indiscernable by eye, therefore they can be part of protective elements on securities.
Periodical micro- and macro-structures on the metal surface are also important in the aircraft industry. It could control the flow of water and prevent the freezing of water on planes' wings. But the problem is how to create such structures on a large surface.
HiLASE experts have succeeded in using laser impulses to create regular, pre-selected structures on the surface of some metals such as aluminium, titanium, copper, molybdenum, gold and steel.
Experts said that the solution will probably be usable for a wide range of elements and materials, maybe even for all metals.
The advantage of the new solution is the high precision of the structures created and the speed, it is much faster and accurate than the technologies applied so far. This method could create one square centimeter of regular surface on metal within about 10 seconds, which considerably raises its chance of being introduced in practice. By existing laser method, it will take a few days to create a one square millimeter surface.
Experts expect their new solution could replace a part of the methods used for periodic nanostructures applied so far, such as dusting, chemical and plasmatic cautery and nano-imprinting, which are cost-intensive and extremely laborious to apply.
Locates in Dolni Brezany, a small city near Prague, HiLASE was opened in 2014 as an institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences' Institute of Physics. It focused on the development of new generation lasers.
