A 100 kV/200 A Blumlein Pulser for High-Energy Plasma Implantation

A high-voltage pulsed power supply of 100 kV/200 A with output short pulses of the order of 1 mus (based on stacked coaxial Blumlein technology) was developed for use in surface treatment of materials by plasma implantation. The plasma implantation process requires pulse repetition and the authors' device is capable of operating at a frequency range of 10-150 Hz, depending on the level of the output voltage. Herein, the authors show that nitrogen-ion species were implanted into stainless steel surfaces (SS304) at high energies (> 30 keV) by using this pulser, inducing alpha phase as demonstrated by X-ray diffraction diagnostic. Moreover, microhardness tests of these treated samples have shown an improvement of about 13.0% for the surface hardness factor