Electrochemical and Corrosion Behaviour of Ion and Laser—Beam Modified Metal Surfaces

Abstract

Engineering components must usually possess appropriate bulk characteristics together with surface properties necessary for their efficient behaviour over the required lifetime. In particular, corrosion and wear resistance, together with the frictional properties, are surface characteristics of great importance in the engineering applications. But it is often impossible to obtain the necessary bulk and surface properties if the component is constructed from a single material, and where such a solution is possible, it is usually uneconomic. Thus an interesting solution is to coat the bulk material with another one able to provide the required surface characteristics. There are many different methods for surface modification or, alternatively, coating of materials. Ion implantation has proved to be very effective in the production of compounds with predetermined composition, whose characteristic are interesting for the improvement of surface properties (1,2,3).