Influence of Cr contents and nanograin sizes on microstructure, mechanical and sliding tribological behaviors of hard Cr-diamond-like carbon films.
The influence of Cr content and nanograin size on the microstructure, the mechanical and sliding tribological behaviors of Cr-containing diamond-like carbon (Cr-DLC) films, deposited on (100) Si substrate by a mid-frequency dual-magnetron system, was explored. The Cr-containing nanoparticles (combining Cr with C) were dispersed in the amorphous DLC matrix while some nanoparticles were transformed into compounds of C/Cr. The incorporation of Cr into Cr-DLC films improved the crystallinity of the Cr-rich nanoparticles and partially converted the nanoparticles to Cr/C phase. The films with Cr content ranging between 5-10 at% and with Cr-containing nanograin sizes in range of 15-27 nm were found to possess higher hardness, lower intrinsic stress, lower coefficient of friction (COF) and wear rate than those of 16-28 at% Cr content and 46-74 nm nanograin sizes. The superhard Cr-DLC film with 8.3 at% Cr and 18.4 nm Cr-containing grain gave the favorable micro-tribological characteristics with COF at micro approximately 0.1 and wear rate at 3.6 x 10(-8) mm3/Nm.
School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China.
Xiang
X
Yu
Chengbiao
C
Wang
Meng
M
Hua
Yang
Y
Liu
Deyang
D
Yu