Zirconium carbide-modified polymer-matrix composites with improved reflectivity under high-energy laser ablation

High-energy continuous-wave (CW) lasers can cause severe damage to traditionally structured materials within several seconds because of the formation of an extremely high temperature field. To prevent laser damage, zirconium carbide (ZrC)-modified short-carbon-fiber-reinforced phenolic-resin matrix composites have been successfully prepared. The micro-morphologies and elemental distributions of the composites were investigated and phase detection was performed to study their laser-ablation behavior. The results reveal that the ZrC particles are oxidized rapidly, forming ZrO₂, during laser ablation. Owing to binding of the short carbon fibers and sintering of neighboring ZrO₂ particles, a compact ZrO₂ layer was obtained. Owing to the formed ZrO₂ layer, the reflectivity increased from 8.0% to 52.5% following irradiation at 500 W/cm² for 180 s. This greatly mitigates the absorption of the laser energy. In addition, no distinct ablation pits were observed. This indicates that the composites exhibit excellent anti-laser ablation performance, and could be potentially applied as protective shields for materials exposed to high-energy CW lasers.