Laser-induced coloring on small titanium surfaces

Coloring of titanium surfaces by laser is a technique quite sensitive to small changes of the processing parameters. The specification of power stability, scanner speed, average power, hatching, pattern, etc. as well as the optical characteristics of the laser beam play an important role for the fmal resulting color. All these parameters need to be explored and optimized in order to obtain reproducible results on the same workpiece. Here we demonstrate that coloring of small titanium and Ti6A14V alloy parts is possible. The used laser system is described and we show the parameters and strategies taken into account for obtaining gold yellow, blue and purple colors. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.