Production of focused electron beams in a plasma implantation system

Rapid heating/quenching using plasma extracted electrons is a unique and very cost effective method to with which we can create new non-equilibrium, nanocrystaline, and amorphous materials. We recently demonstrated that short pulse (<2 <mu>s) electron beam irradiation is a viable and inexpensive means of providing rapid heat pulses for surface material processing. North Star Research laboratory experiments using our plasma ion implantation equipment have indicated a very efficient delivery of an energy flux to a target surface (up to 70% using a plasma electron beam). This technique offers extremely low cost per processing watt when compared to other heat pulse generation techniques such as lasers or ion beams. Preliminary experiments conducted with aluminum and plastic substrates proved that our new method produced exposures of 1-2 J/cm(2). (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.