Structural and chemical surface modifications of a stainless steel with implanted molybdenum and carbon ions

The surface transformation of stainless steel was investigated in the case of single- and multi-element ion implantation in order to improve the localized corrosion resistance. Molybdenum and carbon ions (Mo alone and Mo-C) were implanted into austenitic stainless steels (316L type). Several surface techniques (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD)) were used to determine the surface modifications, such as phase transformation (gamma --> alpha), amorphization, precipitation and stable or metastable phase formation, e.g. substitution (for Mo) or insertion (for C) solid solution.