Plasma surface modification of aluminum alloy samples treated with argon discharge conditioning

Conference · Thu Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1999

OSTI ID:20051000

Karandikar, S J; Samant, C C; Gogawale, S V

The study of change in surface properties of metals and their alloys under plasma processing has a wide range of applications. It affords range, flexibility, ease and accuracy of process control at low cost as compared to other techniques. All the applications of non-equilibrium plasmas involve processes like sputtering, etching, polymerization, surface modification, etc. It is expected for industries to get a final product with specific properties with high reliability and repeatability. Stainless steel is used to construct UHV chambers. A comparative study of outgassing rates show that SS can be replaced by aluminium alloy for UHV chambers. Turbomoleculer Pumping Unit evacuates a cylindrical discharge chamber of SS304 with various ports on it. A hollow cathode DC glow discharge in argon for different discharge pressures and for different discharge current densities respectively, is used for treating chemically cleaned ASA6063 aluminium alloy samples, keeping all other parameters constant. TMP unit evacuates SS304 chamber to a base pressure 3 x 10{sup {minus}7}mbar. The processing gas argon is introduced through a leak valve and with the help of a throttling valve the pressure in the discharge chamber is adjusted to the operating pressure 10{sup {minus}2}mbar. The wall temperature and discharge time were the same in all treatments. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) is used to examine processed surfaces and to study topographical features.

• Research Organization: Univ. of Mumbai (IN)
• OSTI ID: 20051000
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ALUMINIUM ALLOYS
METAL INDUSTRY
PERFORMANCE
PROCESS CONTROL
SURFACE PROPERTIES
SURFACE TREATMENTS