Elemental distribution in fluorinated amorphous carbon thin films

Increasing fluorine concentration to control the microstructure from fullerene-like to amorphous in carbon films

a-C:H:F films with different fluorine contents are deposited, leading to different microstructures being formed; including fullerene-like fragments, interlocking pores, and disordered structures.

A near-wearless and extremely long lifetime amorphous carbon film under high vacuum

Prolonging wear life of amorphous carbon films under vacuum was an enormous challenge. In this work, we firstly reported that amorphous carbon film as a lubricant layer containing hydrogen, oxygen, fluorine and silicon (a-C:H:O:F:Si) exhibited low friction (~0.1), ultra-low wear rate (9.0 × 10(-13) mm(3) N(-1) mm(-1)) and ultra-long wear life (>2 × 10(6) cycles) under high vacuum. We systematically examined microstructure and composition of transfer film for understanding of the underlying frictional mechanism, which suggested that the extraordinarily excellent tribological properties were attributed to the thermodynamically and structurally stable FeF2 nanocrystallites corroborated using first-principles calculations, which were induced by the tribochemical reaction.

Recent advances in the mechanical and tribological properties of fluorine-containing DLC films

This review article summarizes the recent advances of F-DLC films in deposition mechanisms, desirable mechanical and prominent tribological properties.