Current status of commercial ion implantation in Spain

Abstract

Commercial ion beam implantation has been steadily growing in Spain for the last 8 years. The emphasis has been placed, similar to other European countries, on the surface treatment of precision tooling and moulds rather than in large numbers of engineering components. This has somehow limited the growth of the market since ion implantation has to compete strongly with well established surface engineering alternatives, such as PVD, thermochemical and chemical processes. However, the possibilities of performing selected area ion implantation treatments at controlled temperatures and with computer control of the processing beam allows rapid treatment of selective areas at a very competitive level. One of the application areas where the process has been applied more successfully is in the area of transformation of plastics (injection and extrusion processes), where treatment of nozzles, mould cavities, calibrating extrusion dies, etc. is carried out on a regular basis. Also, ion implantation has yielded good results in the improvement of coining dies for the Spanish mint and is also currently applied for cutting tools for plastics, rubber and paper, as well as in tooling for the manufacturing of cans. Biomedical applications are still in the development and evaluation stage, largely due to the nature of the Spanish market, which has a less significant presence of native capital manufacturing companies. In this paper, an overview is presented of some of the current applications from the two active organisations in ion implantation, INASMET and AIN, with an indication of the areas in which actual research and technology development (R+TD) and industrial treatment services are performed.