Mechanical Properties of Ion

Application Note

Mechanical Properties of Ion-Implanted Metals

A high-purity copper specimen was irradiated with 10 MeV Xe³⁺ ions and annealed at 723 K for 30 min. NanoTest loads between 0.875 and 8.75 mN were applied to a 90° trigonal indenter, giving a total indentation depth of up to 2 m m. For each maximum load, average hardness values were determined from 5 depth vs. load hysteresis curves.

Non-irradiated Cu

Mean

Load (mN)

Hardness (GPa)

1.09 1.58 3.25

0.51 0.43 0.56

0.50

Irradiated Cu

Mean

Load (mN)

Hardness (GPa)

0.94 1.76 2.60 4.41 5.30 8.67

0.70 0.62 0.67 0.71 0.72 0.72

0.69

The hardness of the non-irradiated material a greed well with the published value for pure copper of about

0.5 GPa.

It is clear that the post-irradiation annealing treatment was not sufficient to eliminate all of the radiation

damage.

There was no significant variation in hardness with depth, a shown in the figure (courtesy of A. Kehrel).