Dataset supporting journal publication 'Diffraction-driven laser surface nanostructuring: Towards patterning with curved periodic surface structures'

We investigated diffraction-driven laser nanostructuring in liquid. A picosecond Nd:YAG laser (Atlantic 6-1064, Ekspla, wavelength 1064 nm, 8 ps pulses) with pulse repetition rates of 100-500 kHz and average power in the range of 0.11-0.6 W was used to irradiate a polished titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V in water and polyethylene glycol 300 (PEG 300). The cavitation bubbles induced by laser ablation were used as diffraction objects to spatially modulate the beam intensity distribution. They are spatially manipulated by thermo-optical tweezers through thermocapillary forces resulting from the thermal gradient generated in the liquid around the irradiation spot. This dataset contains videos of bubble dynamics during laser irradiation and SEM images showing the resulting surface structures, i.e., curved, ~200 nm deep, meandering submicrometer grooves with > 0.8 um spacing. The videos were acquired between December 10, 2020 and January 23, 2021 at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, while the SEM images were taken between October 20, 2020 and June 30, 2021 at the Institute of Metals and Technology, Ljubljana, Slovenia.