The tribological properties of low-friction hydrogenated diamond-like carbon measured in ultrahigh vacuum

In this paper, we investigate the sliding friction and wear behavior of a hydrogenated diamond-like carbon (DLC) film in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) and under partial pressures of water vapor, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen. The initial friction coefficient of the film in UHV was similar to 0.15, but decreased steadily to values as low as 0.03 after about 30 sliding passes. During longer duration tests, the friction coefficient increased again to values as high as similar to 0.15 and such an increase in friction coincided with hydrogen desorption from the contacting surfaces (as detected by a mass spectrometer). Heating DLC to temperatures higher than 360 K also caused desorption of hydrogen and a resulting marked increase in friction. The presence of molecular nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen in the test chamber did not have any noticeable effect on friction, but the presence of thermally dissociated or ionized hydrogen within the close proximity of sliding surfaces had a beneficial effect by restoring the low friction behavior of the DLC films. The introduction of water vapor into test chamber had an adverse effect on friction. The results of this study confirm that hydrogen is key to low friction behavior of hydrogenated DLC films and that the presence of water molecules has an adverse effect on their friction behavior.