Rapid fabrication of ultra-wear-resistant graphene nanocrystallite film by direct laser writing

Abstract

Developing protective films with high wear resistance under heavy load is an urgent challenge. Meanwhile, the conventional fabrication methods for anti-wear film usually require time-consuming and energy consumption processes with vacuum equipment. Here, we report an ultra-wear-resistant graphene nanocrystallite film that can be fabricated by direct laser writing on polyimide in a single step process. The graphene nanocrystallite film had a loose exploded structure but could surprisingly sustain more than 100,000 cycles of friction under 20 N with a stable friction coefficient around 0.17. The ultra-wear-resistant mechanism of the film was revealed that the loose exploded graphene nanocrystallites were restructured into a tough cross-linked nanocrystalline transfer film on the counterpart surface by friction. The cross-linked nano-structure could effectively alleviate the slip consumption between graphene sheets, which resulted in slow wear processes including lattice damage and amorphization of graphene sheets in transfer film. With a good practical significance, the graphene nanocrystallite film is expected to have broad application prospects with the merits of ultra-wear-resistance and easy rapid fabrication feature.