SURFACE ENGINEERING OF LIGHT WEIGHT MATERIALS WITH ION-ASSISTED AND PLASMA-ASSISTED METHODS

Increasing applications of light weight materials are expected in the future. Pursuing this trend surface engineering of these materials - e specially ion- and plasma-assisted methods - will be of increasing int erest to enhance their wear and corrosion resistance. In a research co -operation some promising methods were examined on different aluminium and titanium alloys to assess their potential to increase the surface properties. Among these were magnetron sputtering of chromium nitride , ion beam assisted deposition of Cr/CrN and Al/A(2)O(3) layers, ion i mplantation and ion beam assisted nitriding. Compared to the steel sub strates the assessment of the mechanical properties such as the critic al load of the scratch test of the coated light weight materials is di fferent. Furthermore, it could be shown that both spherical section an d glow discharge optical spectroscopy are useful methods to characteri ze the near-surface zone influenced by ion implantation.