Modeling the conditions for obtaining nanostructures during ion-plasma processing taking into account the quantum-mechanical properties of electrode material

The subject matter of the article is the thermophysical and mechanical properties of surface layers of structural materials using a quantum-mechanical approach. The aim of the article is to adjust the parameters of the heat conductivity and thermoelasticity problem, considering all possible external and internal thermal effects and the quantum-mechanical description of the material structure, for electrodes in vacuum-arc nanostructuring. The task to be solved is to perform calculations using the developed model for a copper cathode considering the energy spent on the formation of nanoparticles during ion-plasma processing with oxygen ions. The methods used are methods for solving nonlinear problems. The following results were obtained. 1. The nature of the dependencies of the maximum temperature, the expected volume of nanostructures, and the maximum depth of their formation on the energy of oxygen ions with charges z = 1 and z = 2 matches previously known dependencies obtained by the classical model, but under quantum-mechanical consideration, the maximum temperature values increase by 15%, the volume of the nanocluster increases by 50%, and the maximum depth of its occurrence increases by 1.5 times. 2. When selecting the parameters of ion-plasma processing for obtaining nanostructures with ion energies 100...500 eV, the previously proposed model with general thermophysical and mechanical properties of structural materials can be used. 3. For technologies with ion energies in the range of 103...2∙103 eV, the previously proposed model can be used but with quantum-mechanical effects of structural materials considered. 4) For technologies with ion energies above 104 eV, calculations should be performed using both approaches (the classical approach and the approach considering the quantum-mechanical properties of structural materials), and after comparison, the variant whose calculation results are closest to the experimental results should be used. Conclusions. The proposed theoretical model using the thermophysical, mechanical, and quantum-mechanical properties of structural materials can be used to adjust the technological parameters of ion-plasma processing to assess the formation of nanostructures in protective and strengthening coatings.