Influence of surface roughness and coating on the friction properties of nanometer-thick liquid lubricant films

The friction properties of nanometer-thick lubricant films are crucial in the reliability and durability of miniaturized moving mechanical components in micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems and hard disk drives. In this work, gas cluster ion beam treatments were applied to prepare smoothed glass sliding pins and diamond-like carbon (DLC) coated sliding pins for pin-on-disk friction tests to study the effect of the surface roughness and the DLC coating on the friction properties of perfluoropolyether (PFPE) films. The effect of the texture of the solid surface on the friction properties was also investigated. The friction properties were not exclusively determined by the surface energies of the solids. The friction coefficients of the nanometer-thick PFPE films, confined between solid surfaces were sensitive to the surface roughness of the solids. The friction coefficient generally increased with an increasing surface roughness (the composite standard deviation of the surface roughnesses of the pair of solid surfaces). This tendency was reversed when there was a strong longitudinal roughness effect at the contact interface. Moreover, the DLC-coated sliding pins had lower friction coefficients than the glass sliding pins, indicating that the friction properties were noticeably affected by the hardness and Young׳s modulus of the contact materials. The mechanisms for the effects of the surface roughness, surface texture and contact materials on the friction properties are discussed.