Antibacterial properties of AISI 420 stainless steel implanted by Ag/Cu ions

AISI 420 stainless steel implanted by Ag/Cu ions was fabricated for antibacterial purpose. The implantation of Ag/Cu ions was in a total dose of 2 × 10¹⁷ ions/cm² at an extracting voltage of 50 KV. The chemical composition of the implanted layer was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The Ag/Cu implanted stainless steel shows good antibacterial property to both Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Aspergillus niger (A. niger).