Experimental investigation on corrosion and hardness of ion implanted AISI 316L stainless steel

The AISI 316L stainless steel has been widely used both in artificial knee and hip joints in bio-medical applications. In the present study AISI 316L SS was implanted with two different ions: nitrogen and helium at 100 key with a dose of 1 x 10(17) ions/cm(2) at room temperature. The crystallographic orientation and surface morphology were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The effects of ion implantation on the corrosion performance of AISI 316L stainless steel was evaluated in 0.9% NaCl solution using electro chemical test both on the virgin and implanted samples. The subsequent Tafel analysis shows that the ion implanted specimens were more corrosion resistant when compared to the bare specimens. Microhardness was also measured by Vickers method by varying the loads. The results of the studies indicated that there was a significant improvement in both corrosion resistance and hardness of implanted samples. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.