Evaluation of materials deposited by a novel electrothermal plasma technique

A new high energy density plasma deposition technique has been proposed and tested in order to investigate the formation of metal-vapor plasmas from a single or a mixed form of materials. The concept of electrothermal segmented plasma source (ETSPS) has been used for studies related to surface coatings, hardening, surface modification, ion implantation, materials synthesis, and the physics of complex mixed multi-component plasmas. The segmented source is a capillary discharge where the ablation liner is made from segments of either from same material or different material in each segment. Preliminary study to examine this technique for single and mixed material coatings has been successfully conducted. Surfaces of deposited substrates have been investigated and analyzed using high resolution optical microscopy, SEM, EDS and FIB milling near the edge. Experiments with Mo, Cu, Mo-Cu, and C-Mo-Cu segments have shown evidence of deposition on the titanium substrates.