Wear reduction by recoil implantation of aluminium into steel

Abstract

The wear resistance of medium carbon steel has been increased by up to 10 × by 84 keV N + recoil implantation of 30–100 nm thick Al films thermally deposited onto the steel. Low energy ion scattering (LEIS) and X-ray diffraction were used to identify the mechanisms responsible for the improvements seen during ball-on-disc wear testing. Nitrogen implantation of 66 nm thick Al layers produced the lowest wear rate on the steel and the WC ball. This improvement is due to the formation of a surface iron rich layer supported by hard iron and aluminium nitrides well bonded to the substrate.