The Ion beam enhanced deposition (IBED) process is a new metal coating process that can be used to effectively coat tableting punches and dies with a variety of hard, wear and corrosion resistant coatings. IBED coating technology is ideal for use on tableting tooling and has two main advantages over conventional metal coating methods:

1.) IBED coatings can be applied at temperatures that do not exceed 150 degrees Fahrenheit, thus maintaining the original integrity of the tooling, including exact dimensions and bulk hardness.
2.) IBED coatings replicate the tooling's original surface finish exactly, thus eliminating the need for post-coating repolishing.

Unlike conventional electro- chrome plating or high-temperature china powder coating processes, IBED is entirely a physical process (chrome plating and vacuum coating are chemical and thermal processes, respectively). Ion beam enhanced deposition processing combines the benefits of thermal diffusion processing and conventional coating technologies because the coating atoms first penetrate into the substrate to form a case layer in the surface, and then are grown out from this case layer as a thick coating. Driven in kinetically instead of thermally, IBED coatings are "ballistically bonded" to the substrate, thus forming a metallurgical bond that is much stronger than a mechanical or chemical bond.

The IBED coating process is implemented by the simultaneous bombardment of a growing coating with an independently controllable beam of energetic atomic particles. The growing coating is generated either by vacuum evaporation or ion beam sputtering. The independent beam of particles consists primarily of charged atoms (ions) extracted at high energy from a broad beam ion source. Beams of either inert species (Ne+, Ar+, or Kr+) or reactive species (N+ or O+) can be utilized for the process.

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