Abstract: An electron beam is radiated on an ion-plating material to heat and evaporate this material, thereby generating a vapor flow of the material. The vapor flow of the material is converged by a hood-like electrode, and at the same time, a positive voltage is applied to the electrode to attract thermoelectrons from the material. The vapor flow is ionized by the thermoelectrons. The converged and ionized vapor flow is deposited on a surface of a strip, thereby performing ion plating.

Abstract: There is provided a process for improving the resistance to corrosion of stainless steel by ion plating process, the process comprising coating a component-adjusted stainless steel having an Mn/S ratio of less than 100 as substrate with a Ti-layer for surface preparation, coating directly the resulting Ti-layer or indirectly a TiC-layer, which has been coated onto the Ti-layer in advance as intermediate, with a TiN-layer in a total thickness of 1 to 3 .mu.m.The TiN-coated stainless steel according to the present invention may be widely used as corrosion-resistant metallic materials for preparing articles which can be employed under wet conditions such as tableware.