Experimental Performance Analysis of Large-Format 304 Stainless Steel Surface Laser Matting Process

In response to the demand for rapid matte finishing on large-format 304 stainless steel surfaces, this study utilized four fiber laser devices (output wavelength: 1064 nm, output power: 100 W, maximum modulation frequency: 4 kHz) to simultaneously perform surface matte finishing experiments on 304 stainless steel, with the aim of fabricating anti-reflective micro-nano structures. During the experiments, by systematically investigating the influence of parameters-including laser power, scanning speed, frequency, and idle speed of a single laser head-on the matte finishing process, the optimal processing parameters for a single laser head were determined as follows: laser power of 20 W, scanning speed of 11,000 mm/s, and frequency of 80 kHz. For large-area high-speed laser matte finishing, the delay of laser on/off was adjusted to compensate for the galvanometer's motion trajectory, thereby ensuring uniform ablation at both the start and end positions of the processing path. Furthermore, in the context of large-area rapid multi-head laser matte finishing on 304 stainless steel, the overlapping of surface regions processed by different galvanometers was achieved by calibrating the motion start and end points of each galvanometer. The optimal overlapping parameters were successfully obtained. This study provides technical support for environmentally friendly matte finishing of stainless steel and offers valuable insights for its application in the stainless steel home appliance industry.