Surface treatment experiments using intense pulsed ion beams have demonstrated new capabilities for materials surface treatment. These experiments have confirmed corrosion resistance, surface hardening, amorphous layer and nanocrystalline grain size formation, metal surface polishing, controlled melt of ceramic surfaces, surface cleaning and oxide layer removal by rapid melting and resolidification. Deposition of beam energy in a thin surface layer allows melting of the layer with relatively small energies (1-10 J/cm2) and allows rapid cooling (109-1010 K/sec) and resolidification of the melted layer by thermal diffusion into the underlying substrate. At higher intensities (≥20 J/cm2), this technology can provide rapid ablation of material from targets followed by rapid, congruent deposition of polycrystalline thin films on substrates. This technology uses high energy pulsed (40–400 ns) ion beams to directly deposit energy in the top 2–20 micrometers of the surface of materials.