THICK AND HOMOGENEOUS SURFACE-LAYERS OBTAINED BY REACTIVE ION-BEAM-ENHANCED DEPOSITION

A recently developed method, reactive ion-beam-enhanced deposition (RIBED), which consists of simultaneous or sequential deposition and implantation steps, has proved to be very effective in the production of surface compounds with interesting surface properties. In this work, we consider surface nitrides of chromium and boron, which are known to be hard and corrosion resistant. The surface compounds were characterized using various different techniques: Auger electron spectroscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry, X-ray diffractometry and scanning electron microscopy. Electrochemical measurements were carried out on the chromium and boron nitride layers, obtained by RIBED, on iron.