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Structure characterisation and mechanical properties of crystalline alumina coatings on stainless steel fabricated via sol–gel technology and fibre laser processing

This work was initiated under DTI Technology programme (TP/3/SMS/6/1/15781 – Direct Laser Point of Processing) in collaboration with the Epichem (now Sigma Aldrich), Attiger (graham.downhill@attiger.com), Liverpool University, and on-going collaboration with the Liverpool John Moores photonics research group (m.sharp@ljmu.ac.uk). We are currently investigating commercial exploitation through Turchan Technologies (contact, pmistry@turchan.com). The key development in this paper was using laser energy to engineer the in-situ transformation of a deposited alumina coating to the mechanically advantageous α form – hitherto unattainable due to the incompatibility of the temperatures normally required to effect this phase change with the temperature stability of the substrate.