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Congratulations to our colleague – we wish you continued success in advancing these important technologies!

 

Ultrashort-pulse lasers can be used not only to polish material surfaces but also... to colour them in a variety of hues. Mantas carried out experiments using copper and stainless steel.

 

“Laser polishing and colouring are used in the medical and automotive industries as an environmentally friendly, easily adaptable, and durable method for polishing and colouring free-form parts and instruments. It is also applicable in the production and colouring of watches.

 

Our thorough experiments have resulted in a wide colour spectrum, high colouring speed, hydrophobic (water-resistant) coloured surfaces and submicron-level polished surfaces, which further enhance the industrial applicability of these processes,” says M. Gaidys.

 

 

 

According to the young scientist, his dissertation aimed to find the optimal sets of laser processing parameters to achieve the lowest surface roughness during laser polishing, and the highest number of colours and fastest colouring speed when laser-colouring copper and stainless steel.

 

Stainless steel was coloured using two methods: a slow and precise approach with lower energy, and a fast method with higher energy. Meanwhile, copper surfaces were coloured to produce various shades of grey. During laser surface polishing, Mantas investigated the ideal number of laser light pulses, assessed the stability of the laser’s effect, and examined how specific properties of the light influence the material’s ablation threshold – that is, the point at which the material begins to change.

 

“It’s exciting that we managed to achieve a truly high colouring speed on stainless steel using femtosecond pulses in a GHz burst, reaching 42.5 mm²/s at a scanning speed of 4250 mm/s. Laser colouring allowed us to produce various colours: blue, yellow, orange, violet, dark green, and many shades of these colours,” says the Doctor of Technological Sciences.