High-energy density beams and plasmas for micro- and nano-texturing of surfaces by rapid melting and solidification

Several advances in materials research have been made due to the wide array of tools currently available for the processing of materials: plasmas, electron beams, ion beams and lasers. The area of material science is fortunate to have seen the development of these tools over the years, be it for new bulk materials, coatings or for surface modification. Several applications have benefited and many more will in the future as the properties of the materials are altered on a micro/nanoscale. Currently, several techniques exist to modify the physical, chemical and biological properties of the material surface; however, this review limits itself to surface modification applications using the rapid thermal processing (RTP) technique. First, a brief overview of the existing surface modification methods using the principles of RTP is reviewed, and then a novel method to create micro/nanostructures on the surface using pulsed plasma exposure of materials is presented. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)