Investigation of surface properties plasma immersion ion implantated AISI 4140 steel

Plasma immersion ion implantation method is a new tecnology in the world, this method provide increasing the lifetime of materials and increasing quality of existing materils. Plazma immersion ion implantation purposes that the ions of elements such nitrogen, carbon and boron penetrate into a solid mass with a kind of method. Plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII or PI3) is now a well-established method of adding high-energy ion bombardment to surface treatment processes.As one of the modern surface quality development methods, plasma immersion ion implantation has many application fields from semi conductor manufacturing to improving surface characteristics of machine parts and even developing bio-medical implants. In ion implanted material surfaces, a layer that has high hardness, fatigue, wear and corrosion resistance is obtained.In this thesis study, AISI 4140 (42CrMo4) steel was nitrided by Plasma Immersion Ion Implantation between 8 ? 40 kV, 150 ? 1500 Hz and 10 ? 55 microsecond parameters by using nitrogen for 2 hours. Depend on the treatment conditions, structures of nitrided layers and the factors which effect the changing of structures were examined by SEM and XRD analysis. Also the hardness changings of the nitrided layers were examined by microhardness and the affect of the treatment parameters on mechanical properties of nitrided layers were researched.