Effect of picosecond laser cleaning on surface morphology and properties of stainless steel

In order to explore the influence of picosecond laser on the cleaning quality of 316L stainless steel, and verify the feasibility of laser cleaning technology on stainless steel. In this paper, we used a picosecond laser for cleaning experiments on contaminated 316L stainless steel to study the effect of different laser process parameters on its surface cleaning quality and used a scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer, digital microhardness tester and laser confocal microscope and other testing techniques to test the samples before and after cleaning. The results show that picosecond laser removal of stainless steel surface contaminants was the most effective when the laser power density was 19.1 × 105 W/cm2, the repetition rate was 80 kHz, the scanning speed was 1900 mm/s and the scanning spacing was 0.03 mm. Compared with the traditional cleaning process, the surface quality of the laser-cleaned samples was higher and more effective, which provided a reference from the application of laser cleaning technology on stainless steel surfaces.