Research in and industrial application of metal source ion implantation at Beijing Normal University

High-current metal-ion sources for the surface modification of materials have been under development at Beijing Normal University since 1988. The present paper discusses both a large-scale metal source ion implanter installed at this Institute at the end of 1995 for research and industrial applications, and a metal plasma deposition/implantation system with three filtered vacuum-are plasma sources. The metal source implanter is equipped with three ion sources and hence can provide three beams of metal ions into a large target chamber of 80 cm diameter and 125 cm length. It allows processing of critical components with various shapes and tooling inserts. Cutting tools - such as inserts, drills, disc cutters and dies - and sophisticated components - such as rotors and stators of off-gas pumps for returnable artificial satellites - have been implanted with many different metal species to improve properties like hardness, wear resistance, coefficient of friction, fatigue strength, corrosion resistance, adhesion and to prolong lifetimes. Some good results are presented. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.