Femtosecond lasers emit short pulses whose temporal width is in the range of less than a picosecond to a few femtoseconds (fs), thereby enabling extremely high peak-power machining with minimum thermal damages. Herein we employed femtosecond laser pulses as a versatile tool for surface processing of textiles made of 2 polymers commonly used in textile industry, Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and Polyamide66 (PA66). This work focuses on a comparison of ultraviolet (UV, 257 nm) and infrared (IR, 800 and 1030 nm) femtosecond laser irradiation at the surface of the polymers PET and PA66, possible hybridization with chemical grafting, as well as the resulting liquid repellency from different process scenarios. The study highlights the different responses of the polymers to the laser irradiations and possible routines for surface functionalization of the textiles.
|