Liquid-Phase Surface Alloying of Copper with Stainless Steel Using Low-Energy, High-Current Electron Beam

The paper deals with the formation of the stainless steel-copper surface alloy which occurs during the single vacuum cycle. Deposition of the stainless steel film onto a copper substrate is performed via successive magnetron sputtering followed by its liquid-phase mixing with copper using the low-energy, high-current electron beam of microsecond length. Numerical calculations are used to identify the optimum irradiation modes for the surface alloying. It is found that the optimum irradiation modes provide the homogeneous surface alloying, and the copper concentration in the obtained layer increases with the increase in energy density of the low-energy, high-current electron beam. The formation of the stainless steel-copper surface alloy increases the wear resistance of copper specimens by 7.5 times as compared to the original specimens. In addition, it is ascertained that the wear resistance of the surface alloy exceeds that of the common film coating (1 μm) more than 5 times.