ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the technology and results of industrial applications of ion implantation and thermal diffusion. Ion implantation consists of directing ions onto surfaces with enough energy that they penetrate the atomic structure of the material and come to rest many atomic layers below the surface. The ion energies used for implantation are in the range 10–300 keV and result in penetration depths of less than a micron. Ion-beam implantation technology was developed in parallel with the ion sources used for physics research and space propulsion in the 1960s. During this period, ion-beam implantation became widely used for 'doping' semiconductors, and many additional applications became apparent after it was developed for this purpose. Much needs to be learned about the mechanisms by which ion implantation improves such characteristics as the corrosion resistance or the hardness and wear characteristics of metals, but some broad understanding of these phenomena is already available.
