Joining of ceramics to metal materials has been studied for decades by many researchers but still difficulties are existed due to the dissimilar properties of two materials. For the successful joining of ceramics, topics are related to the filler metals for the reaction and wettability, the interlayer productions and the thermal expansion mismatch problem. Recently, new approaches for the metallization of ceramic materials are presented to introduce the reactive element directly into the ceramic surface.

In this paper, brazing joining of Al₂O₃ –SUS304 with the conventional Ag-Cu eutectic filler metal was performed by applying the surface modification techniques. High current ion beam and IBAD were used for the alteration and metallization of ceramics surfaces. Al₂O₃ ceramic surfaces were modified with high current Ar­­+ beam bombardment for the cleaning purpose prior to the deposition. IBAD was used for the co-depositions of the reactive Ti and low thermal expansion material. This process was adopted to provide the wetting capability to the ceramic and to reduce the thermal mismatch problem by forming a graded interlayer structure of low thermal expansion material.

The effects of reaction products on the rupture strength of the brazement on the process parameters such as brazing temperature, brazing time and the surface modification effects were observed based on the microstructures of the interlayer. The interlayer of these specimens were analyzed by using the analytical devices such as scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), energy dispersive analysis by X-Ray (EDAX), X-Ray diffraction analyzer (XRD) and electron probe micro analyzer (EPMA). The obtained results will be discussed in detail.