Ion implantation effects on surface-mechanical properties of metals and polymers

Abstract

constant support, guidance and help throughout the duration of this work. The author would also like to thank Dr. Eal Lee for his enthusiastic help and guidance and Dr. Louis Mansur for his steady encouragement and support, both of whom made the sojourn at Oak Ridge National Laboratory very pleasant. The author would like to thank Dr. Monty Lewis for patiently teaching him the intricacies of operating particle accelerators, Mr. Sylvester Cook for performing several of the implantations, and Dr. William Allen and Mr. Roy Buhl for helping with various aspects of accelerator operations. Thanks are due Dr. Lynn Boatner, for providing single crystal specimens, Dr. Ken Farrell for use of his creep machines and more importantly, for very helpful discussions regarding various aspects of metal creep, Dr. Z. L. Wang for EELS analysis of the polymer specimens, Mr.Wade Jones for TEM specimen preparation, Dr. Janet Pawel for reading parts of the manuscript and Mr. Alex Fischer for helping with TEM operations. The author would especially like to thank his mother, Ms. Saraswathi Ra. without whose patience, support and understanding, this work could not have been accomplished. The author would like to invoke the memories of his late grandfather, Dr. S. Ramachandra Ra.