Low energy ion erosion studies of machine faceted stainless steel

Type 304 annealed stainless‐steel substrates with a variety of machine faceted surface finishes have been eroded by low‐energy (250–1000 eV) hydrogen, and argon ion beams. The dimensions of the machine faceted features studied range from that of the annealed crystalline grain size (approximately 0.0125 cm) to 0.25‐cm macrostructures. Relative erosion rates have been measured and analyzed as a separable function of angular dependent sputtered particle emission and particle recapture. It was found that the formation of a faceted topography on the surface of components exposed to low‐energy, light‐ion erosion can significantly reduce the effective ion erosion yield.