Surface modification produced by a nitrogen operated plasma focus device: the role of the ion beam in the heating of a substrate

Abstract

The role of the nitrogen ion beam generated with a small energy plasma focus (PF) device in the thermal processing of an austenitic stainless steel substrate is discussed. A numerical solution of the heat equation which takes into account the temperature variations of the thermal coefficients of the material is presented. By using several characteristics of the beam determined in previous works, it is found that the energy content of the beam is not enough to promote a strong heating of the outer layers of the substrate, which is required to explain the introduction of foreign particles to depths well beyond the ion range in the material, and also the martensitic transformation of steel up to a depth of ≈0.6 μm found in this work. The surface treatment is thus attributed to a plasma bubble generated by the disruption of the plasma column, and some evidence of its presence is obtained by employing a Faraday cup (FC). When the numerical model is used with an input energy density corresponding to the experimental value, and with a delivery time equal to the temporal width of the bubble, the evolution of the temperature profiles along the substrate depth shows a melting front reaching the proper depth to explain the penetration of Ti and N atoms found in a previous work, and the martensitic transformation depth presented in this work.