ABSTRACT
Low temperature plasma nitriding of austenitic stainless steels has shown the potential for combined improvement in tribological and corrosion properties. However, several technical problems have been experienced in practice, mainly due to the lack of understanding of the microstructure and phase composition in the nitrided layer. In the present work, a rigorous characterisation of the microstructure and interface of low temperature plasma nitrided austenitic stainless steel has been carried out, employing cross-sectional TEM in conjunction with XRD, EDX and SEM analyses.
