Alloying Aluminum with Fe Using Laser Induced Plasma
Technique¹

Y. A. Alwafi^a, N. Bidin^a, D. Gustiono^a, and S. W. Harun^b,*

^a Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81300, Johor, Malaysia
^b Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Malaya 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

*e-mail: noriah@utm.my, swharun@um.edu.my

Received February 28, 2012; published online July 9, 2012

Abstract—A new surface modification technique is demonstrated using laser induced plasma (LIP) to increase
the hardness of the surface layer. This LIP treatment provides a very high heating and fast cooling mechanism
that can be used to form alloyed layer on a material surface. The hardness of the alloyed material is measured
and the results show that the alloyed surface is 3 times as hard as the un-treated surface and a single Fe alloyed
aluminum surface is harder than the one formed by the mixture of Fe and Cu. The micro-hardness of the alloy
increases with the number of pulses at a rate of around 4 HV/pulse. The maximum hardness of 93.0 HV is
obtained with the use of single Fe after exposure to 7 pulses of the laser.

DOI: 10.1134/S1054660X12080026

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