Abstract This paper presents an overview of a few ion beam treatment technologies developed by ITL scientists and through successful national and international collaboration with other companies and research organizations. Ion beams of medium to heavy mass elements of various natures, with energies from low keV, to moderate, few tens of keV have been used for ion beam treatment or ion implantation. A process named SurfTexTM developed for treatment of the outer, mirror-like surface of Teflon used as a thermal control covering allowed to eliminate completely the specular reflections from the surface that were blinding the optical equipment, without changing the thermal optical properties of the coverings. An ion implantation process named ImplantoxTM allowed creating on the surfaces of most treated polymers a stable protective layer that considerably decreased the erosion of the polymer materials in LEO. Another ion beam treatment technology (named CARBOSURFTM) lead to surface carbonization that resulted in forming a charge dissipative top surface layer on polymer materials providing them with tunable, variable thermal optical properties in a wide range of values. The obtained results have been used for development of a number of technological processes, followed by successful scale-up trials. A few low energy high intensity technological ion beam sources have been used in an industrial manufacturing-production environment to obtain large surface area treated polymer sheets.
Ion Beam Treatments for Enhancement of Surface Conductivity and Durability of Space Polymers: Results, Analysis, Mechanisms
2013
2012-06-04
10 pages
Aufsatz/Kapitel (Buch)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
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