Surc. Coat. Technol., 342, 167-177 (2018) [pdf]

Tribological Mechanism of Diamond-like Carbon Films Induced by Ti/Al Co-doping

Cuicui Kong, Peng Gui, Lili Sun, Yong Zhou, Yunxiao Liang, Xiaowei Li, Peiling Ke, Kwang-Ryeol Lee, Aiying Wang

Co-doping two metals into diamond-like carbon (DLC) films exhibits a desirable combination of low residual stress and hard hardness for further application, but the insight into tribological mechanism induced by the co- doped metals is still not fully clarified yet. In this work, we fabricated the Ti/Al co-doped DLC films (Ti/Al-DLC) with various metal concentrations using the hybrid ion beam system, and the tribological properties of films were systematically investigated. Results revealed that the co-doped Ti/Al metals played an important role in the tribological behaviors of DLC films; the film deposited at 2.5 A (Ti1_0.06at.%Al_4.78at.%) exhibited the lowest friction coefficient of about 0.05 and wear rate of 1.56×10^-16 m³ N^-1 m^-1. This attributed to the formation of thick transfer layer in the friction interface, which could be described as a dual or hierarchy nanostructure constructed of cross-linking amorphous carbon networks and hard phase (mainly TiC and Al₂O₃) structures.