Effect of double ion implantation and irradiation by Ar and He ions on nano-indentation hardness of metallic alloys

Abstract In this study, the authors have investigated the combined effect of a double layer of implantation on four different metallic alloys, ODS steel MA957, Zircaloy-4, Ti–6Al–4V titanium alloy and stainless steel 316, by ions of two different species – He and Ar – on the hardening of the surface as measured by nano-indentation. The data was collected for a large number of indentations using the Continuous Stiffness Method or “CSM” mode, applying the indents on the implanted surface. Careful analysis of the data in the present investigations show that the relative hardening due to individual implantation layers can be used to obtain an estimate of the relative hardening effect of a combination of two separate implanted layers of two different species. This combined hardness was found to lie between the square root of the sum of the squares of individual hardening effects, (Δ H A 2 + Δ H B 2 ) 0.5 as the lower limit and the sum of the individual hardening effects, (Δ H A + Δ H B ) as the upper limit, within errors, for all depths measured.