RT Journal Article
T1 Current status of commercial ion implantation in Spain
A1 Oñate, J. I.
A1 Alonso, F.
A1 Braceras, I.
A1 Sanz, A. L.
A1 Rodríguez, R. J.
AB Commercial ion beam implantation has been steadily growing in Spain for the last 8 years. The emphasis has been placed, similar to other European countries, on the surface treatment of precision tooling and moulds rather than in large numbers of engineering components. This has somehow limited the growth of the market since ion implantation has to compete strongly with well established surface engineering alternatives, such as PVD, thermochemical and chemical processes. However, the possibilities of performing selected area ion implantation treatments at controlled temperatures and with computer control of the processing beam allows rapid treatment of selective areas at a very competitive level. One of the application areas where the process has been applied more successfully is in the area of transformation of plastics (injection and extrusion processes), where treatment of nozzles, mould cavities, calibrating extrusion dies, etc. is carried out on a regular basis. Also, ion implantation has yielded good results in the improvement of coining dies for the Spanish mint and is also currently applied for cutting tools for plastics, rubber and paper, as well as in tooling for the manufacturing of cans. Biomedical applications are still in the development and evaluation stage, largely due to the nature of the Spanish market, which has a less significant presence of native capital manufacturing companies. In this paper, an overview is presented of some of the current applications from the two active organisations in ion implantation, INASMET and AIN, with an indication of the areas in which actual research and technology development (R + TD) and industrial treatment services are performed.
SN 0257-8972
YR 1998
FD 1998-05
LK https://hdl.handle.net/11556/3369
UL https://hdl.handle.net/11556/3369
LA eng
NO Oñate , J I , Alonso , F , Braceras , I , Sanz , A L & Rodríguez , R J 1998 , ' Current status of commercial ion implantation in Spain ' , Surface and Coatings Technology , vol. 103-104 , pp. 185-190 . https://doi.org/10.1016/S0257-8972(98)00391-0
NO A survey carried out recently by Hirvonen et al. [6] among universities, research centres and companies involved in plasma- and ion-assisted technologies recognised the major factors hindering their commercialisation, such as: treatment or coating of complex shapes, scaling up, process time, cost and prejudice. Although some of these can require some clarification and might not be totally accurate because solutions have been found to overcome these limitations (see, for example, the excellent work of Straede and colleagues at the Danish Technological Institute [4] ), the last three are usually major obstacles for penetration of ion beam processing technology. This is being overcome by a continuous and dedicated effort in dissemination of the technology by organising seminars, industrial meetings, courses, publishing application case studies, mailings, etc. This effort has been in some instances supported by technology transfer programs either from the European Union (e.g. SPRINT, Innovation) [7] or from local and national authorities (Basque Government, Spanish National Research Council, Spanish Ministry of Industry and Energy, etc.). In addition, a psychological and marketing drawback often expressed by some potential clients has been the lack of a distinctive colour change after the treatment on most materials of engineering interest. This accentuates the effort in selling the process in comparison with other established surface techniques. Some ion implantation service centres use a marketing strategy that stresses the “invisible strength” given by the process on tools, but this does not always work in small manufacturing companies without appropriate controls and risks of losing the treated tooling and, therefore, not being able to evaluate the benefits. Some authors (J.I. Oñate, F. Alonso and I. Braceras) acknowledge the financial support from the Basque Government (Cooperation Project no. CO96 E M01) and the Spanish “Comision Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologia-CICYT”, under Biosurf PETRI Project ref. no. 95-0072-CT. The other authors (R. Rodrı́guez and A. Sanz) acknowledge the support from CICYT (Ref. project MAT 94-0958) and the European Commission-DGXIII (INNOVATION project IN 10141 I).
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