A surface treatment with pulsed laser in air is an attractive technique to enhance the wear-corrosion resistance of the hardened layers of austenitic stainless steels (ASS). Hardened surfaces were produced on austenitic stainless steel through a laser-beam surface treatment technique to obtain better performance of the work piece whenever it is submitted to wear and/or high temperatures or corrosive media. The microhardness of the surfaces is found to depend on the time the surface is exposed to the laser beam, the applied load and the sample thickness. A fast, flexible and clean technique for a direct laser synthesis of nitride steel surface in air is developed to obtain fine homogeneous structures due to the rapid solidification rates, little thermal penetration, smooth surfaces, little distortion and reducing work after processing. The synthesis is induced by a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser with an irradiation wavelength of 1064 nm in reactive atmospheres with different exposure time. The microhardness of the treated surface of austenitic stainless steel increases up to a certain value with increasing laser exposure time. The desired coating formation can be obtained by proper choice of treatment parameters. Microstructure characterization of the treated surface was carried out by optical microscopy and grazing incidence X-ray diffraction.
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