Thin layer activation of large areas for wear study

Abstract

Thin layer activation (TLA) method is a versatile tool for activating thin surface layers (from several micrometers to millimeters range) in order to study the wear, corrosion or erosion processes of the activated parts without disassembling or stopping the running equipment in question. Mainly parts made of metals and alloys are suitable for direct activation, but by using secondary particle implantation other materials can also be measured in micrometer thick surface range [F. Ditrói, I. Mahunka, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. Phys. Res. B 113 (1996) 415; F. Ditrói, I. Mahunka, Wear 219 (1998) 78]. In most practical cases the activation of a point-like spot (several square millimeters) is enough to monitor the wear, corrosion or erosion, but by special problems relatively great surface of complicated spatial geometry should be activated uniformly. Two ways are available for fulfilling this task: (1) production of large area beam spot or scanning the beam over the surface in question from the accelerator side, or (2) a programmed 3D movement of the sample from the target side. Taking into account the large variability of tasks occurring in our practice, the latter method was chosen as routine solution in our cyclotron laboratory.