Significant reduction of corrosion of stainless steel by strong-field laser surface passivation
Stainless steels are basic corrosion-resistant materials, but despite great efforts for over a century, they still suffer inevitably from environmental erosions by ubiquitous chemical reactions, resulting in typical corrosion rates at dozens of μm∙yr<sup>-1</sup>. Here, we developed a strong-field laser passivation strategy to obtain super corrosion-resistant stainless steels through forming a hybrid µm-Fe<sub>3</sub>O<sub>4</sub>/Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>/Cr<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> passivation layer with unique bionic taro-leaf-like hierarchically heterogeneous Cassie-state micro/nanostructure morphologies. We observed up to 100,000-fold reduction in the corrosion rate of AISI 304 steel in saline, acidic as well as alkaline solutions. The ultralow corrosion rate can remain for >6500 hours. The generality was exemplified by exhibiting extreme anticorrosion enhancements of AISI 316, 420, 201, 430, and 2205 steels under the same conditions. This study reveals a new strategy for achieving super corrosion-resistant performance of stainless steels in various harsh environments.
Authors
- Qing Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0660-596X)
- Yukun Xiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5089-3538)
- Liansheng Zheng
- Huailiang Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8469-7041)
- Ganwen Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3361-7907)
- Zhenxiang Xing (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9779-210X)
- Jisheng Pan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3677-5524)
- Kaoru Yamanouchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3843-988X)
- Wei Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1131-3585)
- Yuan Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7289-2103)
- Zhen Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5086-0410)
- Ruxin Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2603-9814)
- Hongwei Zang
- Yingbo Cong
Institutions
- Agency for Science, Technology and Research (SG)
- Xidian University (CN)
- Tianjin University (CN)
- National University of Singapore (SG)
- Jilin University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- ShanghaiTech University (CN)
- Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CN)
- State Key Laboratory on Integrated Optoelectronics (CN)
- Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (CN)
- The University of Tokyo (JP)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Light Science & Applications
- Published
- 2025-10-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01952-5
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Laser Material Processing Techniques
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Jilin University
- Tianjin University
- State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics
- Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
- National Key Research and Development Program of China