A NEW METHOD FOR DETERMINING CHANGES IN HARDNESS OF IMPLANTED MATERIALS

P. Żukowski1, C. Karwat1, M. Łozak1, J. Liœkiewicz2

1 Lublin Technical University, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, 38A Nadbystrzycka Str., 20-618 Lublin, Poland
2 Institute of Physics, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Pl. M. Curie-Sklodowskiej 1, 20-031 Lublin, Poland

A new method for comparing microhardness of implanted metal layers has been proposed. It is performed with the application of a Vickers device used to determine forces to be applied to a microindenter to obtain the same penetration depth in the samples subjected to implantation with various doses.
Applicability of the method has been demonstrated by testing it on nonimplanted copper samples - and those implanted with the molecular nitrogen ions of 200 keV energy and with the doses of 3.5x1017 cm-2 and 7x1017 cm-2.