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  for Metal Finishing since 1989
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Sputter coating vs ion implantation

2005

I am a tutor and I'm going to do a research, developing a high temperature material fe-al based alloy using the powder metallurgy and surface treatment, ion implantation.

I wanted to ask what is the differences between the sputter coating and ion implantation?

Thanks,

Fazimah Mat Noor
KUiTTHO - Malaysia

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Sputtering is a coating process where material is removed from one surface (target) and the same is deposited on another (substrate). The typical energy used to remove atoms is about a few eV. There is little chemical interaction between surface and coating (in most cases).

In ion implantation, atoms of a gas or metal are ionized (by stripping electrons), then accelerated under high (100kV to >1 mil kV) electric field so they can penetrate the surface and get lodged in the crystal structure. In spite of high energy, the depth of atoms is only a few tenths of angstoms (depths varies with applied voltage).

Mandar Sunthankar
- Fort Collins, Colorado
2005