Light is critical for art. It allows us to see color, and can itself be
a tool for creating unique pieces of art and design. Here we
demonstrate that a laser can be a multifunctional and effective tool
for the creation of masterpieces, analogous to the process of an
artist creating a canvas with classical paints and brushes. We
investigate the interaction between focused laser irradiation and
metallic surfaces and analyze the optical effects in thin oxide films
for three main artistic operations: color making, multiple color
changes, and erasing managed by a nanosecond laser. These processes
are possible upon heating the material above the evaporation point and
are proved to be dependent on the cooling rate, according to both
experimental and theoretical results. Such an interference-based laser
paintbrush could find applications in modern art and design.
A pulsed fiber laser with a wavelength of 1.06 µm was used to treat a commercial pure titanium surface in the air at intensities below the ablation threshold to provide oxide formation. Laser oxidation results are predicted by the chemical thermodynamic method and confirmed by experimental techniques (x-ray diffraction, energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy). For the first time, the chemical thermodynamic method was used for determining the qualitative and quantitative phase-chemical composition of the compounds formed by a pulsed laser heating of commercial titanium in the air, and its applicability is proven. The simulation shows that multilayered composite film appears on a surface, the lower layers of which consist of Ti 2 O 3 and TiO oxides with the addition of titanium nitride; and the thin upper layer consists of transparent titanium dioxide. Also, the chemical composition of films remains unchanged within a temperature range of 881-2000 K.
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