Nature of growth of dual titanium boride layers with nanostructured titanium boride whiskers on the surface of titanium

The nature of growth of hard surface layers consisting of a titanium diboride (TiB2) layer and a titanium boride (TiB) whisker layer on titanium, and the kinetics have been critically examined. High density of nanostructured TiB whiskers have been found to form in the sub-layer in most conditions. A very surprising and unusual result is the kinetics of growth of TiB whiskers at temperatures within a few degrees of the beta transus – the whiskers grew denser and to depths larger than that at any other temperature investigated.