Bonding structure and tribological properties of DLC films synthesized by dual ion beam sputtering

Abstract

Results of DLC films synthesized on Si(111), glass and AISI 52100 bearing steel by dual ion beam sputtering at room temperature are presented. The carbon films deposited by ion beam sputtering were simultaneously bombarded by CH n+ with energies of 0.2–25 keV. Infra-red and Raman spectroscopy revealed that films consisted of amorphous carbon with the structure of mixed sp 3 + sp 2 bonding. It appears that carbon films bombarded by CH n+ with low energies of 200–400 eV have more sp 3 bonding and high microhardness. Tribological investigation of DLC films on AISI 52100 steel under a wear load of 15 N showed a constant friction coefficient of 0.1 and roughly stable wear factor of (0.436 ± 0.06) × 10 −6 mm 3 N −1 m −1 and, when the load surpassed 15 N, the friction coefficients and wear factor increased with the increase of load.