A study on the redistribution of ion-implanted nitrogen in Ti-modified austenitic steel

Titanium modified austenitic steel has been subjected to nitrogen implantation to different fluences. There is a considerable deviation of the experimental depth profile of nitrogen from the theoretical profile obtained using Monte-Carlo codes. Available literature ascribes such redistribution to sputtering; by following the implanted nitrogen and the vacancy-defects alongside using resonance nuclear reaction analysis and positron annihilation spectroscopy, clear experimental evidence for the formation of vacancy-nitrogen complexes is established. The possibility of role of complexes in redistributing the implanted nitrogen is explored here for the first time.