Gas-discharge plasma application for ion-beam treatment of the holes' inner surfaces

Abstract

The possibility to modify the holes and pipes' inner surface with focused highintensity low-energy ion beams was first shown in this work. The studies were carried out using an axially symmetric single-grid system for the ions' extraction from a free plasma boundary with subsequent ballistic focusing of the ion beam. Ion implantation of the inner surface was carried out in the region of the ion beam defocusing. The studies considered the effect of a nitrogen ions' beam with energy of 1.4 keV on the inner surface of a tube with a diameter of 20 mm made of stainless steel AISI 321. The beams were formed with a repetition rate of 40 kHz and pulse durations of 5, 7.5 and 10 µs. It is shown that the mutual deposition of the sputtered material on the tube' opposite sides partly compensates for ion sputtering. As a result of implantation of the inner surface of a pipe made of stainless steel AISI 321, the nitride layers with a thickness of more than 15 microns with a nitrogen dopant content of 22-30 at.% were obtained.