Thermal spray is defined as a process, in which feedstock materials are heated to a molten or semi-molten state by either electrical or combustion energy and projected in a form of droplets toward a substrate. On the substrate, sprayed particles are flattened and rapidly quenched to solidify to form coatings with peculiar lamellar structures. In this article, a short introduction of thermal spray technology has been given, covering topics such as the principles of thermal spraying process, fundamental processes in coatings formation, structural characteristics of thermal sprayed coatings, and recent developments in the feedstock materials and spray processes. Emphasis was given to deformation and solidification processes of single sprayed particles, microstructure-property relationships of sprayed coatings, and stress generation in coatings.

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  Fundamentals and recent research development of the structure and growth mechanism of anodic oxide films formed on pure aluminum and aluminum alloys such as A5052 and A6061 were described with focusing on their gas emission property in use of vacuum chambers. Highest volume gas emitted from anodized aluminum surface is water vapor followed by oxygen in the second. Notable suppression of gas emission from aluminum alloy surface can be attained by giving porous/barrier composite anodizing films based on the decrease in defects formation in the films.

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  Hard X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (HXPS) with high-resolution, high-throughput and large photoelectron attenuation length has been developed at SPring-8 utilizing high brilliant undulator X-rays. This enhanced versatility of the photoemission spectroscopy, enabling to apply to laboratory prepared thin films and nano-structured samples of advanced materials. We will introduce wide varieties of experimental results on advance materials performed at JASRI public beamline BL47XU and NIMS contract beamline BL15XU of SPring-8.

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