A 100 kV/200 A Blumlein Pulser for High-Energy Plasma Implantation

A high-voltage pulsed power supply of 100 kV/200 A with output short pulses of the order of 1 mus (based on stacked coaxial Blumlein technology) was developed for use in surface treatment of materials by plasma implantation. The plasma implantation process requires pulse repetition and the authors´ device is capable of operating at a frequency range of 10-150 Hz, depending on the level of the output voltage. Herein, the authors show that nitrogen-ion species were implanted into stainless steel surfaces (SS304) at high energies (> 30 keV) by using this pulser, inducing alpha phase as demonstrated by X-ray diffraction diagnostic. Moreover, microhardness tests of these treated samples have shown an improvement of about 13.0% for the surface hardness factor