Abstract
Friction and wear of single layers of graphene have been studied at the micrometer scale. Epitaxial graphene grown by thermal decomposition on SiC-6H(0001) is found to have an initial friction coefficient of 0.02, significantly lower than graphite under the same experimental conditions. During reciprocal sliding the graphene layer is damaged. The evolving friction coefficient of 0.08 for the carbon-rich interface layer terminating the SiC layer is still lower than that of graphite and five times lower than that of the hydrogen-etched SiC substrate. Micrometer-sized patches within the sliding track retain the low friction coefficient of graphene even after hundred sliding cycles.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Geim, A.K., Novoselov, K.S.: The rise of graphene. Nat. Mater. 6, 183–191 (2007)
Filleter, T., McChesney, J.L., Bostwick, A., Rotenberg, E., Emtsev, K.V., Seyller, Th, Horn, K., Bennewitz, R.: Friction and dissipation in epitaxial graphene films. Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 086102 (2009)
Lee, C., Li, Q., Kalb, W., Liu, X., Berger, H., Carpick, R.W., Hone, J.: Frictional characteristics of atomically thin sheets. Science 328, 76–80 (2010)
Li, Q.Y., Lee, C., Carpick, R.W., Hone, J.: Substrate effect on thickness-dependent friction on graphene. Phys. Status Solidi B 247, 2909–2914 (2010)
Lee, H., Lee, N., Seo, Y., Eom, J., Lee, S.W.: Comparison of frictional forces on graphene and graphite. Nanotechnology 20, 325701 (2009)
Kim, K., Lee, H.J., Lee, C., Lee, S.K., Jang, H., Ahn, J.H., Kim, J.H., Lee, H.J.: Chemical vapor deposition-grown graphene: the thinnest solid lubricant. ACS Nano 5, 5107–5114 (2011)
Shin, Y.J., Stromberg, R., Nay, R., Huang, H., Wee, A.T.S., Yang, H., Bhatia, C.S.: Frictional characteristics of exfoliated and epitaxial graphene. Carbon 49, 4070–4073 (2011)
Ashurst, W.R., Wijesundara, M.B.J., Carraro, C., Maboudian, R.: Tribological impact of SiC encapsulation of released polycrystalline silicon microstructures. Tribol. Lett. 17, 195–198 (2004)
Emtsev, K.V., Bostwick, A., Horn, K., Jobst, J., Kellogg, G., Ley, L., McChesney, J.L., Ohta, T., Reshanov, S.A., Röhrl, J., Rotenberg, E., Schmid, A.K., Waldmann, D., Weber, H.B., Seyller, T.: Towards wafer-size graphene layers by atmospheric pressure graphitization of silicon carbide. Nat. Mater. 8, 203–207 (2009)
Lauffer, P., Emtsev, K.V., Graupner, R., Seyller, T., Ley, L., Reshanov, S.A., Weber, H.B.: Atomic and electronic structure of few-layer graphene on SiC(0001) studied with scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. Phys. Rev. B 77, 155426 (2008)
Scherge, M., Gorb, S.: Biological Micro- and Nanotribology. Springer, Berlin (2001)
Belin, M., Martin, J.M.: Triboscopy, a new approach to surface degradations of thin films. Wear 156, 151–160 (1992)
Acknowledgments
We thank Thomas Seyller of the University of Erlangen–Nürnberg for samples preparation and acknowledge support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) as part of the ESF EUROCORES Programme FANAS. Authors at the INM thank Eduard Arzt for continuing support of this study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Marchetto, D., Held, C., Hausen, F. et al. Friction and Wear on Single-Layer Epitaxial Graphene in Multi-Asperity Contacts. Tribol Lett 48, 77–82 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-012-9945-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-012-9945-4