Phase formation after nitrogen implantation into molybdenum

High fluence nitrogen ion implantation into molybdenum is compared for low energies of 30 keV and below and high energies of 1 MeV at a total fluence between 0.5 and 2.7 × 1018 at./cm2. For the low energy implantation, a transformation from cubic Mo2N towards tetragonal Mo2N is observed around 580 °C with ex situ X-ray diffraction (XRD), whereas high energy implantation leads to the simultaneous formation of tetragonal Mo2N and hexagonal MoN in the same temperature range, as observed with in situ XRD. Additionally, ion beam analysis was employed to measure the local atomic concentrations, which can be used for determining the phase formation threshold and the diffusion constant.