Post by Tjalling de Boer

#autoenergy Mondays at Coherent Corp. When femtosecond lasers grow copper 🔬 Researchers at Northwestern Polytechnical University (iOPEN), with collaborators at Changchun University of Science and Technology and Central South University, used a Coherent #Monaco femtosecond laser to “pre-write” nano-terrain on stainless steel before electroplating copper. Instead of the laser doing the heavy lifting, it just sets the rules: the nanostructured skin layer concentrates the local electric field and gives copper mechanical anchor points. The result? 🧱 Bond strength up to ~100 MPa 🥇 Hardness & modulus close to forged copper ⏱️ Plating time for cm-scale microstructure arrays cut from hundreds of hours to tens of minutes 🔋 Why this matters for energy & e-mobility Think fast-plated, high-density copper for: ➕ High-current busbars and inverter interconnects ➕ 3D battery tabs and current collectors ➕ Compact micro-coolers and micro-reactors for power electronics thermal management It’s a neat pattern: laser-defined electrochemistry – a few hundred femtoseconds up front, then low-cost wet chemistry does the volume manufacturing. 📄 Paper (Open Access): “Ultrafast laser nanostructuring and its application in electrochemical deposition of metal microstructures with high density and robust bonding strength,” Applied Surface Science Advances (Vol. 27, 2025) Directory of Open Access Journals 👉 https://lnkd.in/eWTw5N78 👏 Shout-out to the team at Northwestern Polytechnical University (iOPEN) and collaborators at Changchun University of Science and Technology and Central South University, and to Elsevier Applied Surface Science Advances for publishing the work.