Laser-driven ion sources for metal ion implantation for the reduction of dry friction

The anomalously high ion currents and very high ionization levels of laser-produced plasmas give laser-driven ion sources significant advantages over conventional ion sources. In particular, laser-driven ion sources should provide higher currents of metal ions at lower cost, for implantation into solids in order to improve their material properties such as friction. The energy and charge distributions for Pb and Sn ions produced by ablation of solid targets with ∼25 J, ∼300 ps iodine laser pulses, resulting in up to 48-times ionized MeV ions, as well as the optimization of focus position, are presented. Implantation of these ions into Ck-45 steel, without electrostatic acceleration, produced profiles with two regions. Almost all of the ions were implanted in a near surface region a few nm deep. However, a small but significant number of ions were implanted as deep as could be measured with Rutherford backscattering (RBS), here 150 nm for Sn and 250 nm for Pb. For the implanted ion densities and profiles achieved, no change in the coefficient of friction was measured for either ion