Wear rate control of peek surfaces modified by femtosecond laser

•Tribological properties of a laser surface texturing on PEEK was investigated.•Dimpled surfaces exhibited the highest friction coefficients.•Wear rates of dimpled disc surfaces were found 10 times lower. This paper presents the effect of laser texturing on the tribological properties of PEEK surfaces under a ball-on-flat contact configuration. Thus, surfaces with circular dimples of various diameters and depth were created. Tests were conducted with a normal load of 5N and a sliding velocity of 0.01ms−1, using bovine calf serum at 37.5°C as a lubricant. The tribological conditions including the sliding frequency and the lubricant viscosity indicate that tests were performed under boundary lubrication regime. Results showed that discs with higher dimple depth exhibited higher friction coefficient and caused more abrasive wear on the ball specimen. Nevertheless, tribosystems (ball and disc) with dimpled disc surfaces showed a higher wear resistance. In the frame of our experiments, wear rates obtained for tribosystems including dimpled surfaces were 10 times lower than tribosystems including limited patterned or untextured surfaces. Applications such as design of spinal implants may be concerned by such a surface treatment to increase wear resistance of components.