Improvements of plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) and deposition (PIII&D) processing for materials surface modification

Plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) process is a three dimensional surface modification method that is quite mature and well known to the surface engineering community nowadays, especially to those working in the field of plasma–materials interaction, aiming at both industrial and academic applications. More recently, deposition methods have been added to PIII, the PIII&D, opening possibilities of broader range of applications of these techniques. So, PIII&D is becoming a routine method of surface modification, with the advantage of pushing up the retained dose levels limited by the sputtering due to ion implantation. Therefore, well adherent, thick, three-dimensional films without stress are possible to be achieved, at relatively low cost, using PIII&D.In this paper, we will discuss about a few PIII and PIII&D experiments that have been performed recently to achieve surface improvements in different materials: 1 — high temperature nitrogen PIII in Ti6Al4V alloy in which a deep nitrogen rich treated layer resulted in surface improvements as increase of hardness, corrosion resistance and resistance to wear of the Ti alloy; 2 — nanostructures in ZnO films, obtained by PIII&D of vaporized & ionized Zn source; 3 — combined implantation and deposition of calcium for biomaterial activity of Ti alloy (PIII&D), allowing the growth of hydroxyapatite in a body solution; 4 — magnetron sputtering deposition of Cr that was enhanced by the glow discharge Ar plasma to allow implantation and deposition of Cr on SAE 1070 steel (PIII&D) resulting in surfaces with high resistance to corrosion; and 5 — implantation of nitrogen by ordinary PIII into this Cr film, which improved resistance to corrosion, while keeping the tribological properties as good as for the SAE 1070 steel surface.

► Improvements of plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) and deposition (PIII&D) methods.
► High temperature PIII of nitrogen in Ti6Al4V was carried out at 800 °C.
► Different PIII&D schemes were used to produce ZnO films, and Ca deposition.
► Cr film was produced by PIIID and nitrogen implanted to improve the properties of that film.