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Nanotribology and Nanomechanics pp 843–899Cite as

Nanotribology of Ultrathin and Hard Amorphous Carbon Films

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Abstract

One of the best materials to use in applications that require very low wear and reduced friction is diamond, especially in the form of a diamond coating. Unfortunately, true diamond coatings can only be deposited at high temperatures and on selected substrates, and they require surface finishing. However, hard amorphous carbon – commonly known as diamond-like carbon or a DLC coating – has similar mechanical, thermal and optical properties to those of diamond. It can also be deposited at a wide range of thicknesses using a variety of deposition processes on various substrates at or near room temperature. The coatings reproduce the topography of the substrate, removing the need for finishing. The friction and wear properties of some DLC coatings make them very attractive for some tribological applications. The most significant current industrial application of DLC coatings is in magnetic storage devices. In this chapter, the state-of-the-art in the chemical, mechanical and tribological characterization of ultrathin amorphous carbon coatings is presented. EELS and Raman spectroscopies can be used to characterize amorphous carbon coatings chemically. The prevailing atomic arrangement in the DLC coatings is amorphous or quasi-amorphous, with small diamond (sp3), graphite (sp2) and other unidentifiable micro- or nanocrystallites. Most DLC coatings, except for those produced using a filtered cathodic arc, contain from a few to about 50 at. % hydrogen. Sometimes hydrogen is deliberately incorporated into the sputtered and ion-plated coatings in order to tailor their properties. Amorphous carbon coatings deposited by different techniques exhibit different mechanical and tribological properties. Thin coatings deposited by filtered cathodic arc, ion beam and ECR-CVD hold much promise for tribological applications. Coatings of 5 nm or even less provide wear protection. A nanoindenter can be used to measure DLC coating hardness, elastic modulus, fracture toughness and fatigue life. Microscratch and microwear tests can be performed on the coatings using either a nanoindenter or an AFM, and along with accelerated wear testing, can be used to screen potential industrial coatings. For the examples shown in this chapter, the trends observed in such tests were similar to those found in functional tests.

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  1. Nanoprobe Laboratory for Bio- & Nanotechnology and Biomimetics (NLB2), Ohio State University, 201W. 19th Avenue, 43210-1142, Columbus, Ohio, USA

    Bharat Bhushan

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  1. Bharat Bhushan
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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Bhushan, B. (2008). Nanotribology of Ultrathin and Hard Amorphous Carbon Films. In: Nanotribology and Nanomechanics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77608-6_16

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