Effect of dopant concentration on femtosecond pulsed laser irradiation of yttria-stabilized zirconia for generating nanopores

Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) is a fine ceramics material that has been applied to dental implants and mechanical components. As YSZ is a hard, brittle, and chemically stable material, that undergoes phase transformation during mechanical loading, it is difficult to fabricate nanostructures using mechanical processing methods. In this study, a surface structuring method using a femtosecond pulsed laser was proposed, which is effective in suppressing the mechanical loading-induced phase transformation. As the material properties of YSZ vary with the concentration of yttria dopant, polycrystalline zirconia samples with different yttria concentrations (2, 3, 5, and 8 mol%) were used to investigate the effect of yttria concentrations on laser processing characteristics for nanostructuring. At all concentrations, nanopore generation in the surface grain was achieved by laser irradiation near the ablation threshold. In addition, there was no significant change in the crystal structure before and after laser irradiation, and no damage to the bulk occurred. At 2 mol%, intergranular cracks were generated around the pores. By increasing the dopant level to 5 mol%, the lens effect of the crystal grains became stronger due to enhanced grain growth, and the diameter and number of pores increased. In addition, pores formed preferentially on smaller grains at 5 mol%. However, for YSZ with 8 mol%, the pore formation phenomenon was different from that in the lower dopant level, as the area near the grain boundary was preferentially ablated, and microcracks formation and exfoliation of the surface also occurred. These results contribute to a deeper understanding of the laser ablation characteristics of zirconia with different dopant levels and to the development of surface structuring methods for fine ceramics materials.