Method and apparatus for altering material
First Claim
1. A method of surface treating a material, comprising the step of irradiating a surface of the material with a repetitively pulsed ion beam, wherein each spatially contiguous pulse of the pulsed ion beam has a duration of ≦
- 500 ns at an accelerating gap between a cathode and an anode assembly, a total beam energy delivered to the material of >
1 Joule/pulse, an impedance of <
about 100 Ω
, an ion kinetic energy of>
50 keV, and a repetition rate >
1 Hz.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Methods and apparatus for thermally altering the near surface characteristics of a material are described. In particular, a repetitively pulsed ion beam system comprising a high energy pulsed power source and an ion beam generator are described which are capable of producing single species high voltage ion beams (0.25-2.5 MeV) at 1-1000 kW average power and over extended operating cycles (108). Irradiating materials with such high energy, repetitively pulsed ion beams can yield surface treatments including localized high temperature anneals to melting, both followed by rapid thermal quenching to ambient temperatures to achieve both novel and heretofore commercially unachievable physical characteristics in a near surface layer of material.
71 Citations
33 Claims
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1. A method of surface treating a material, comprising the step of irradiating a surface of the material with a repetitively pulsed ion beam, wherein each spatially contiguous pulse of the pulsed ion beam has a duration of ≦
- 500 ns at an accelerating gap between a cathode and an anode assembly, a total beam energy delivered to the material of >
1 Joule/pulse, an impedance of <
about 100 Ω
, an ion kinetic energy of>
50 keV, and a repetition rate >
1 Hz. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
- 500 ns at an accelerating gap between a cathode and an anode assembly, a total beam energy delivered to the material of >
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12. A method for altering the characteristics of a near surface layer of material, comprising:
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(a) generating a repetitively pulsed ion beam, wherein the ion beam has an ion kinetic energy level >
0.1 MeV, a pulse duration of ≦
500 ns at an accelerating gap between a cathode and an anode assembly, a total beam energy delivered to the material of >
1 Joule/spatially contiguous pulse, an impedance of <
about 100 Ω
, and a pulse repetition rate >
1 Hz; and(b) irradiating the surface of the material with the ion beam and thereby altering the near surface layer of the material defined by a predetermined depth from the irradiated surface. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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30. An ion beam generator for altering near surface layers of materials, comprising:
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a) means for repetitively generating pulsed power signals at a rate >
1 Hz, wherein the pulsed power signal has a duration of 30-500 ns, andb) means for generating an ion beam in a magnetically confined plasma with the pulsed power signal, whereby pulsed ion beams are produced at rates >
1 Hz and 30-500 ns in duration at an accelerating gap between a cathode and an anode assembly with a total beam energy delivered to the material of >
1 Joule/spatially contiguous pulse and an impedance of <
about 100 Ω
. - View Dependent Claims (31)
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32. A process for uniformly altering a characteristic of a surface of a material to a depth of less than 50 microns by irradiating the surface with a repetitively pulsed ion beam, wherein each spatially contiguous pulse of the pulsed ion beam has a duration of ≦
- 500 ns, a total beam energy delivered to the material of >
1 Joule/pulse, an impedance of <
100 Ω
, and a repetition rate >
1 Hz, such that continuous areas in excess of 50 cm2 are created with the altered characteristic by each pulse.
- 500 ns, a total beam energy delivered to the material of >
-
33. A process for uniformly altering a characteristic of a surface of a material to a depth of less than 50 microns by irradiating the surface with a repetitively pulsed ion beam, wherein each spatially contiguous pulse of the pulsed ion beam has a duration of ≦
- 500 ns, a total beam energy delivered to the material of >
1 Joule/pulse, an impedance of <
100 Ω
, and a repetition rate >
1 Hz, such that continuous areas in excess of 5 cm2 are created with the altered characteristic by each pulse.
- 500 ns, a total beam energy delivered to the material of >
Specification