Bending Strength of Ceramics Implanted by Titanium, Zirconium and Chromium Ions with MEVVA Source

Abstract

ZTA (alumina toughened by 20 wt.% zirconia), hot-pressed silicon nitride (with totally 10 wt.% Y2O3 and Al2O3 as additives) and TZP (pressureless-sintered yttria stabilized zirconia) ceramics were implanted by various doses (5 × 1016 ions/cm2 ~ 1 × 1018 ions/cm2) of Ti, Zr, and Cr ions with a MEVVA (metal vapor vacuum arc) source implanter. The bending strength of these ceramics was investigated. It was discovered that, for different ceramics, different behaviors were presented with the same doses of implantation ions. For alumina and zirconia ceramics, the bending strength increased with increasing implantation doses of Ti and Zr ions, but decreased with high dose of Cr ions. For silicon nitride ceramics, however, the bending strength originally increased with smaller doses of metals implanted, and decreased with higher doses of metals of Ti, Zr, and Cr ions. The different behaviors are correlated to the different variations in compositions and microstructures of ceramics after ion implantation.