Friction of self-lubricating surfaces by ion beam techniques. Final technical report

Abstract

UES, Inc. conducted a research and development program designed to establish conditions for ion implantation/mixing of suitable additives into the surfaces of bulk ceramics and metals for obtaining self-lubricating low friction and wear characteristics. The substrates considered were ZrO{sub 2}, Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}, Si{sub 3}N{sub 4}, steel and Ni-base superalloy. The lubricant additives chosen were BaF{sub 2}/CaF{sub 2}Ag, MoS{sub 2}, WS{sub 2}and B{sub 2}O{sub 3}. The initial tasks of the program were to synthesis these lubricant compounds by co-implantation of constituent elements if sufficient beams of desired elements were obtained. The final tasks were to investigate high energy (MeV) ion mixing of deposited coatings as well as to investigate ion beam assisted deposition using low energy ion beams. It was shown that MoS{sub 2} can be synthesized by co-implantation of Mo{sup +} and S{sup +} in ceramic materials with appropriate choice of energies to obtain nearly overlapping depth profiles. The sliding life of DC magnetron sputtered MoS{sub 2} films of thicknesses {approximately}7500{Angstrom} on ceramic materials such as sapphire, Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} and ZrO{sub 3} were improved by ten to thousand fold after 2 Mev Ag{sup +} ion mixing. Ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) and ion beam mixing were utilized to fabricate self-lubricating coatings of CaF{sub 2}/Ag and BaF/CaF{sub 2}/Ag composites.