Development of new technologies and practical applications of plasma immersion ion deposition (PIID)

This paper reviews the latest research and development at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI®) in plasma immersion ion deposition. SwRI has developed a few new technologies including high rate deposition of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings, thick DLC for improved erosion and corrosion resistance and the deposition of the inner surface of long pipes. These technologies are based on hollow cathode discharge (HCD) plasma process rather than the conventionally used glow discharge process. In the HCD process, electrons generated on the part experience multiple collisions before they can escape to the anode; therefore, an intensive plasma is generated, and hence a high current can be obtained. As a result a much higher deposition rate and a much thicker coating can be achieved than those obtained from conventional PIID processes. In this paper, we will discuss the principle of the HCD process, the experimental results of the DLC coatings in comparison with the DLC coating produced using conventional PIID and some practical applications of these technologies. In addition to the meshed PIID, SwRI has also been working on conventional, but large scaled PIID. A few issues and applications will be presented at the end of this paper.