Electronic properties of ion-implanted metals

All the properties of interest in this paper are directly related to those two major effects of ion implantation: atomic displacements due to collision cascades, and compositional changes due to the addition of the implanted species into the host. Both of these effects lead to major modifications in the structural properties of metals. Typical examples are collision-induced disordering (or amorphization) of alloys, or phase transformation induced by the combined effects of heterogeneous species, or implantation and radiation-induced (or enhanced) diffusion. Some rather basic relations between electronic and structural properties are reviewed to emphasize the fact that the nature and properties of chemical bonding determine many features of the implanted alloy's evolution, i.e. that electronic properties underly most of the thermodynamic properties. Secondly the use of ion-beam techniques as a specific tool to study important problems in electronic properties of metals is discussed. 52 refs.; 15 figs