the effects are studied of high-dose implantation of b and c into nb sub 3 al alloys. this particular system was chosen because of its superconducting properties. nb sub 3 al has a-high superconducting transition temperature t/sub c/ of 18 k and has the a-15 structure most high t/sub c/ materials seem to involve metastable materials and in particular metastable a-15's. there is empirical speculation that as the b atom in the a sub 3 b a-15 structure decreases in size, the transition temperature increased. this increase in t/sub c/ appears to be associated with a decrease in lattice parameter and a rapprochement of the nb atoms. a attempt is made to gradually replace the al atoms by the smaller b and c atoms. normal alloying of b and c with nb sub 3 al will make the a-15 structure unstable. ion implantation of b and c is a good approach for attempting to synthesize metastable a-15 nb sub 3 al/sub 1-x/b/sub x/ and nb sub 3 al/sub 1-x/c/sub x/. (era citation 07:061763)