Study on smoothing of titanium surface by intense pulsed ion beam irradiation

Smoothing of a pure titanium surface by irradiation of an intense pulsed ion beam (IPIB) with a power density of 76 MW/cm(2) and a pulse width of 65 ns has been studied experimentally and numerically. Surface roughness of the IPIB irradiated titanium reduces to 1/6 of that of the IPIB non-irradiated titanium. A high-frequency component in the envelope of the titanium surface is decreased after IPIB irradiation. These results indicate that the IPIB irradiation leads to surface smoothing of the titanium. From numerical estimation, the temperature of surface region within about 4 mu m exceeds its melting point after 76 MW/cm2 IPIB irradiation. A comparison of the experimental and the numerical results shows that evaporating or melting of the target surface by IPIB irradiation leads to a smooth target surface. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.