What is the nitriding potential?

What ist the nitriding potential?

The nitriding potential is thermodynamically defined by:

where „p_NH3” and “p_H2” are the partial pressures of the ammonia and hydrogen gases respectively. This potential defines the possibility of creating the nitrogen layers of determined structure. Generally – the higher potential is the resulting phases richer in nitrogen are. The phase structure of nitrogen layers as a function of potential and temperature is presented in Lehrer’s chart.