Influence of ion implantation on corrosion resistance of the nickel over steel.

Nitrogen ions were implanted at different energies of 15, 30, 45 and 60 keV and with the flux of 1017 N+cm−2 inside the nickel layers that have been deposited on the 304 stainless steel using the electron gun method at room temperature. XRD patterns showed different crystalline phases of nickel nitride for the implanted samples. The surface morphology was extracted by MountainsMap software's using statistical data from AFM analysis. In addition, a potentiodynamic polarisation test was performed in a 3.5% NaCl solution to study the corrosion behaviour. These studies revealed that corrosion was directly related to the deposition parameters, mainly the implantation energy, modifying the surface so that the highest corrosion resistance was obtained for the sample implanted with 60 keV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]