High vacuum tribology of polycrystalline diamond coatings

Abstract

Polycrystalline diamond coatings have been grown on unpolished side of Si(100) wafers by hot filament chemical vapour deposition process. The morphology of the grown coatings has been varied from cauliflower morphology to faceted morphology by manipulation of the growth temperature from 700°C to 900°C and methane gas concentration from 3% to 1·5%. It is found that the coefficient of friction of the coatings under high vacuum of 133·32×10−7 Pa (10−7 torr) with nanocrystalline grains can be manipulated to 0·35 to enhance tribological behaviour of bare Si substrates.