The use of pulsed, intense ion beams for thermal surface treatment

Groups from laboratories in the US, Japan, and Russian have begun research into the use of pulsed, intense ion beams for a variety of surface treatment applications. US participants in this effort include Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratories, Cornell University, and the Naval Research Laboratory. Potential applications of this new technology include thermal surface treatment of materials for increased hardness and reduced corrosion, friction and wear; rapid film deposition in which the stoichiometry of the substrate is preserved; enhanced bonding of surface coatings up to several μm thick to substrates by liquid phase interface mixing; and surface cleaning without solvents. Experiments to date have used single pulse accelerators to perform surface treatment and film deposition experiments. Successful results from experiments in Russia, Japan, and the US have demonstrated the scientific feasibility of these techniques. New developments in repetitive pulsed power and ion beam technology at Sandia National Laboratories and Cornell University may enable the use of repetitively pulsed, intense ion beams for commercial surface treatment applications. This capability is being developed in the joint Sandia-Cornell Ion BEam Surface Treatment (IBEST) program