Patent ID: 8728252

Claim:
A process for treating a non-ferrous metal component, comprising: (a) placing the non-ferrous metal component into a process chamber; (b) after said placing step, reducing the pressure of the process chamber to an overall vacuum pressure of 0.1 to 1.0 Pa, and biasing the non-ferrous metal component to have a voltage potential of from 100 to 2000 V; (c) starting a pulsed oxygen flow into the process chamber while maintaining the pressure at 0.1 to 1.0 Pa such that a glow discharge comprising oxygen ions is generated, the process chamber additionally comprising a thermionic-emitting filament; (d) subsequent to starting a pulsed oxygen flow step, activating the thermionic-emitting filament, and heating the process chamber to a temperature from 300 to 800° C.; and (e) subsequent to the starting a pulsed oxygen flow step, providing an oxygen diffusion step of continuously pulsing oxygen flow, wherein each pulse in said continuously pulsing oxygen flow has a duty cycle alternating between flowing oxygen to stopping flow, the duration of one duty cycle is from 20 to 60 minutes and the ratio of time of flowing oxygen to time of stopping oxygen flow is from 0.15 to 0.85, thereby increasing charged species density of the glow discharge, the oxygen ions flowing towards the non-ferrous metal component and colliding the surface thereof at least some of which diffuse into the non-ferrous metal component.