Amorphous solid

Diamond

Composite number

Engineering

Metallurgy

Materials science

Coating

Layer (electronics)

Silicon

Carbon fibers

Chemical engineering

Nitrogen

Nanotechnology

Organic chemistry

Doping

Thin film

Composite material

Tribology

Crystallography

Chemistry

Nanostructure

Thermal stability

Optoelectronics

Diamond-like carbon

Amorphous carbon

Tribology International

To improve the thermal stability and mechanical performances of the DLC coating at high temperature, thermodynamically stable Si-N and C-N bonds were introduced into the DLC coating by co-doping Si and N elements. The friction coefficient and wear rate changed from 0.055 and 1.93 × 10 −7 mm 3 /Nm (25 °C) to 0.033 and 7.3 × 10 −6 mm 3 /Nm (500 °C). The superior tribological performances of Si, N-DLC coating at 500 °C was attributed to the formation of compacted layers with high hardness (9.2 GPa) and elastic recovery (~89%) on the wear track during running-in period. The compacted layer possessed a high compliance and large deformation capacity due to the fullerene-like nanostructure within amorphous carbon network and the shear-induced stacked structure, thereby reducing the friction.

High temperature tribology behavior of silicon and nitrogen doped hydrogenated diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings