Synergistic construction of hydrophobic surface on Ti6Al4V via femtosecond laser texturing and silane modification

To enhance the surface properties of Ti6Al4V for potential biomedical applications, this study proposes to construct micro-nano structures to obtain a hydrophobic surface on titanium alloy implant. Diverse micro-nano structures were successfully fabricated on the Ti6Al4V surface through femtosecond laser processing and silane modification. Results demonstrate that the hydrophobicity of laser-treated samples showed a non-linear variation with increasing laser fluence. After silane modification, all samples achieved stable hydrophobicity (contact angle ≈ 150°) when the fluence ranged from 1.27 J/cm² to 15.28 J/cm². This suggests that the synergistic effect between the laser-generated micro-nano structures and the low surface energy provided by silane effectively promotes a transition in the wetting state from the Wenzel model to the stable Cassie-Baxter model. This work provides a technical approach for fabricating functionalized titanium alloy surfaces with stable hydrophobicity.