Observation and analysis of the terrace-like structured transfer film of SiO2/PTFE composites

Abstract

Our observations indicated that the transfer film of SiO2/PTFE composites was nonuniform with stacked layers and the coverage rate of each layer decreased gradually from the bottom to the top. This morphological feature was defined as “terrace-like structure” in this paper. Our study focused on observation and analysis of the number of layers, the thickness and coverage rate of different layers in the “terrace-like structure”. The results showed that the thickness of different layers was nearly the same, about 0.14 µm. The coverage of the bottom layer was about 60%–80%, and that of the top layer was approximately 2%–10%. When SiO2 was 20 wt%, the number of transfer film layers was the largest and the wear rate was the lowest.