Conversion of organic films into fluorine-containing onion carbon as anti-adhesion solid lubricants

Abstract

Coating a thin-layer solid lubricant with low adhesion and friction is desired for silica-based micro/nano electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS). Onion carbon is a promising one, especially fluorine-containing onion carbon with low surface adhesion. Herein we report a new route to synthesize fluorine-containing onion carbon (FOC) through carbonizing electrophoresis-deposited organic films. A little fluorine (1.65–3.64 at.%) could manyfold decrease the surface adhesion. The optimized FOC integrates the merits of fluorine doping and onion carbon, presenting ultralow surface adhesion (2.72 nN) and friction coefficient (0.03). These results suggest that this strategy is a promising approach to fabricate the desired solid lubricants for MEMS/NEMS.