Interpretation of Glancing Angle and Bragg–Brentano XRD Measurements for CoCr Alloy and Austenitic Stainless Steel After PIII Nitriding

X-ray diffraction data taken in Bragg-Brentano and glancing angle geometries are compared for stainless steel AISI 304 and CoCr alloys HS188 after nitriding by plasma immersion ion implantation. A direct inferring of the nitrogen depth profile from the line shape for expanded austenite is precluded as additional stress is present. Furthermore, conventional stress analysis is rather complicated as highly textured material is present and only a very much reduced set of reflections is available for evaluation. Nevertheless, a strong dependence of the lattice expansion and the resulting line shape on the detailed process conditions was observed.