Corrosion resistance behavior of nitrogen ion-implanted in tantalum

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of nitrogen ion implantation on surface structure as well as resistance against tantalum corrosion. In this experiment, nitrogen ions which had energy of 30 keV and were in doses of 1 × 1017 to 9 × 1017 ions/cm2 were used. The X-ray diffraction analysis was applied for both the metallic analysis and the study of new structures having been created through the nitrogen ion implantation. Atomic force microscopy was also used to check the roughness variations prior to and also after the implantation phase. Moreover, the corrosion analysis apparatus was applied in order to compare resistance against tantalum corrosion in advance to and after the ion implantation. The results indicate that nitrogen ion implantation has a significant impact on increasing resistance against tantalum corrosion. After the corrosion test, the surface morphology of samples was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy. Also, the elemental composition is characterized by energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis. The purpose of this article is to obtain the perfect condition of the formation of tantalum corrosion resistance. The corrosion potential curves and roughness values obviously indicate that corrosion potential variations caused by the different doses of nitrogen ion bombardment are proportional to surface roughness in an inverse manner. The EDX analysis demonstrates the existence of the elemental composition of nitrogen ion implantation in the samples.